Massively Multiplayer (3 page)

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, thinking of Uriah. “I’m just going to the kitchen. Do you want anything?”

She yawned and stretched. “No, thanks. I’m going to sleep. I’ve been in since after dinner, and my eyes are steaming.” She raised an eyebrow. “You want to tell me what’s actually bothering you?”

“No,” he lied.

“Mom and Dad been bothering you about a summer job again?”

“No,” he lied again.

Sara shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She tossed the VR rig onto the virlo and made for her bed. “I wouldn’t worry too much about them, though,” she added over her shoulder. “I think they just like to feel useful, and that makes them panicky.” She lay down on the bed, not bothering with the covers. She waved a hand and the lights dimmed.

“Useful?” Andrew prompted. He could have come up with plenty of other terms to describe his parents’ manner.

Sara’s voice was already fuzzy with sleep. “You know: not too afraid of doing the wrong thing, but always afraid you’re not doing enough of the right thing.”

Andrew took a second to work that out, and failed. He thought about asking for clarification, but realized she was already asleep. He shut the door quietly. It was not until he got back to his room that he wondered whether her final comment had been directed more at him than his parents.

Thinking of the incidents in the sea-trolls’ caves brought a new wave of chagrin as he pulled off his clothing and settled into his bed. Was Wisefellow -- Gregor -- right? Was it ambition that had driven him to attempt to free the slaves earlier? Was it ambition that had caused him, too often, to veer from the plans so carefully concocted before every undertaking? If so then ambition was not what it was cracked up to be, certainly not the panacea so universally urged by his parents.

His "ambition" certainly hadn't led to the successes enjoyed by some of his peers, people like Gil and Mim, and the others who lacked whatever character flaw seemed to grab him at those crucial instants, to drive him from the prescribed path to victory and into some new, and disastrous, trajectory.

No, he decided as the lights dimmed automatically, Gregor was wrong. It could not be ambition which lay at the heart of his impulsiveness. Or else he did have the ambition his parents craved for him, but only in the world of the game, where it did no good. A stupid irony, if true, because after all, the game was just that. Success or failure there mattered very little. It was a world of complicated plans with unimportant outcomes -- of actions without consequences. Nothing mattered there. That was what made it so easy. And maybe that perception was the root of "ambition" after all.

Two deep thoughts in one evening. “A new record,” he thought wryly. One more moment of introspection would be enough to turn him to poetry, like his father. Or perhaps just enough to drive him to sleep. Andrew fell into a deep slumber, and dreamed of a slave with his sister's eyes. But when he awoke, he did not remember his dreams, or think much of them. So much for poetry.

File Capture Complete

Organizing data...100%

Filtering...100%

KeyFiles ready for review

The words floated above the desk, their greenish glow the only light in the room. They illuminated a pair of hands, long-fingered and spidery, which hovered over an ancient-looking keyboard. The fingers tapped, tapped, bounced into the air to snatch a square of light from the holographic display, and tapped again at the keys. New windows of light flared briefly into existence, were closely scrutinized, and shuffled into glowing piles. Occasionally there were grunts of satisfaction or discovery, but mostly there was the rapid-fire clacking of the keys, the sound of someone working very intently.

The fingers paused briefly. In the air over the desktop, a small window played out a video clip.

“Expand window five,” whispered the owner of the tapping hands.

Obligingly, the clip blew itself up to several inches across, enough to make out a dimly lit cavern where a tiny figure raised a blowpipe to its lips and felled another tiny figure. Little people scampered forward, waving their arms in argument. Other figures ran around, trying to trace the outcry. The owner of the hands pursed his lips. Bad design, he thought. But an interesting play.

“Volume up window five, twenty-five percent.” He listened to the argument. He watched the faces closely. Eventually, two tiny figures escaped pursuit and walked up a road toward a coastal town.

“Close window five.”

The owner of the hands leaned back. Before him, hovering in the air, was a green block with the words “Druin the Reaver” on it. Threads of light connected the block to other blocks of various colors, including one which pulsed an ominous red.

Why hadn’t the thief died? He’d been woefully under-prepared for the degree of opposition he was facing. He’d raised up the whole place with his ridiculous attack on the slaver. Hell, it was a wonder his whole team hadn’t turned on him, cut his legs out from under and left him bleeding in the tunnel to throw off their pursuers. Bu they hadn’t. They’d rallied, instead, helped get him out of the stupid, stupid predicament he’d gotten himself into.

And that, of course, was why the thief hadn’t died: because he had a knack. Not for combat, and certainly not for thievery…no, he had a knack for getting people to stick together, for getting them to cooperate when logically they should have turned on one another. Maybe it was the helpless puppy-dog face, maybe it was the unthinkingly noble behavior, but whatever it was, it worked.

“Hmm. Odd. A thief who doesn’t act like a thief. Desk, flag file seventy-three, further interest.” The block labeled “Druin the Reaver” obligingly turned orange.

The long-fingered hands reached up and shuffled the block off to one side, in a pile of similar orange blocks.

“Continue scan.”

The floating lights of the display flared. New windows opened. New threads linked new blocks together in an intricate web. The hands went back to work.

Chapter 2 – Monopoly

"So, I hear the new boss is coming in today."

"Hardly new, Henry. Calloway bought us out five months ago."

"Still, he only showed once for the signing, didn’t he? Had his accountants here to settle up. What's he coming down today for, anyhow? Thought he lived in New York, overlooking his stock market."

"He does, normally. But I expect he's here to oversee the new software release."

"Huh. Funny. I mean, it's not like he knows computers himself, right?"

"No, I don't think so. But his people took over the project, so I guess he has some personal stake in it. And it’s a public-relations event."

"Sure, but it's not like he'll understand any more of the real guts of the thing than I do. You computer types...you're all a mystery. Here's your floor."

"Thanks. I'll see you later, Henry."

"See you, Mr. Wallace."

Wolfgang Wallace was a mystery to a lot of people. He was no-one's stereotypical idea of a computer technician. He didn't wear glasses and he dressed well. He was heavyset, over six and a half feet tall, with a permanently hangdog expression accentuated by a neatly trimmed mustache. More than once he had wondered whether his meteoric rise at Archimago Technologies was due less to his skills than to the fact that he so completely violated people's expectations of what a computer programmer should look like. Perhaps they had sped him into management in order to get him out of the trenches before he gave the other nerds a bad name.

Wolfgang had spent the better part of his life thwarting others' expectations of him. His mother had named him after Mozart, certain that she had given birth to a musical prodigy. Her theory even had support, of sorts: his father was second violin in the Seattle symphony orchestra, and she herself, as she so often reminded him, had once served as secretary to the city's opera company.

Alas, little Wolfgang showed more interest in the computer which ran his music software than in the act of making music itself. His mother's encouragement became prodding, and then pestering, and finally verged upon abuse. But it was all for nothing: by the time little Wolfgang had become big Wolfgang, it was clear that the boy possessed no musical talent, and less inclination.

He was duly sent off to school where he surprised everyone by displaying an absolute genius for abstract computational and algorithmic theory, a talent no one had suspected since he had previously been forced to spend all of his free time and energy scratching away miserably at a violin, while his mother kept time.

He graduated cum laude with a degree in software architecture and was instantly snatched up by one enormous software consultancy after another, until finally Archimago Technologies made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Although the industry trade journals noted his new position, the offer was made in private, and he had never revealed what terms had been so attractive that he had resisted all subsequent offers to defect...but friends noticed that where he had always worn a look of scowling intensity at his other jobs, he seemed now contented. One mentioned at a party that it was as if Wolfgang had solved some complex problem which had been troubling him for years. The wrinkles of intense concentration on his forehead smoothed. He lost weight. And despite generous bids for his services from rival companies, he remained happily at Archimago, moving up swiftly through the ranks of programming administration, the only remaining scars of his mother's expectations an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music and a tendency to hum snatches of melody while he worked.

As Wolfgang approached the great blued glass panes which fronted the lobby of Archimago Technologies' central office building, he wondered whether today his boss' expectations of him would be met or not.

Even as he reached the doors, a sleek stretch limousine, painted an outrageous electric blue, glided into position directly outside. The uniformed driver skipped to the passenger door, just as the Archimago security guard reached the doors to the lobby. Wolfgang watched in admiration as the two performed a sort of ballet: synchronized door-opening. From the invisible interior of the car, a gangly form unfolded itself into the shape of his newemployer.

Vitus Calloway was, like Wolfgang Wallace, a man used to foiling peoples' expectations. In an age in which the wealthy made an art of understatement, embarrassed, perhaps, of their riches, Calloway was ostentatious. Lumpy gold rings bedecked his long fingers. His electric blue limousine was in no way complimented by the fuchsia Italian suit which covered his gawky frame, nor the thin tie sparkling with holographic flames. Tiny round glasses perched on his beak-like nose, their wire stems hidden in the mane of white hair which flowed down to shoulders. He leaned forward over a diamond-crusted walking stick which had probably cost even more than the limousine.

For another thing, while all of his vast investments were in American companies, he was British; pretentiously so. "'S Wallace, in'nit? Brilliant!"

"Yes, Mr. Calloway. Wolfgang Wallace, head of systems architecture. Pleased to meet you, sir. We're happy that you could make it." That was another thing which many people didn't expect: Wolfgang could be downright charming when the situation called for it.

"Wolfgang, right, knew it, knew it!" Calloway bobbed his head animatedly, his mane of unruly white hair flapping away. "Wouldn't miss it. Been most keen on this project, very keen indeed. Have you met my son?" He switched gears with the abruptness sometimes seen in those who were very old or very rich, or, as in Calloway's case, both.

"I don't believe so, sir."

"Right! Bernardo! Out ye come, lad! Lively now!"

He flapped a hand at the impenetrable interior of the limousine -- Wolfgang supposed it was meant to be an encouraging wave -- and was finally answered by the emergence of the car's other occupant.

There could not have been two more different people imagined. Where Vitus Calloway was all liveliness and energy, his son was mousy and drab. Vitus' brilliant outfit clashed monstrously with Bernardo's proper grey pinstripe. The younger man was round and puffy, fully a foot shorter than his gawky parent, who now strutted behind him in order to push him forward and present him to Wolfgang. The impression was something like a small blimp being maneuvered about at the end of a crane.

"This is Bernardo, scion of my empire, my only boy!"

Some “boy,” Wolfgang thought. Bernardo was at least forty, and a none-too-robust forty at that...though perhaps this still qualified as boyish in relation to his father's seventy-plus years.

"Pleased to meet you. Wolfgang Wallace. I take it this is your first trip to Archimago?"

"Yes. Mister Wallace. Charmed." Bernardo's voice, when it came, was another contrast. It had nothing of the champagne sparkle of Vitus Calloway's quick-fire British cliches. This was more like marmalade ladled grudgingly over cold toast.

"Brought the boy along to see the works, don't you know. Been raised in the mother country, all the best schools, then managing my New York outfit. But I'm an old man now, don't you know, not long for this mortal coil, eh what? All be his, I suspect, unless his mother's lawyers are a fair sight better'n mine, eh? Haw haw!"

Wolfgang spotted a third figure emerging from the limousine. “And Ms...”

“Oh, dash it all, that’s Forthwhit. Come along, Henny! Henrietta Forthwhit, my financial officer.”

Ms. Forthwhit had a distracted expression, a small computer on her wrist to which she whispered constantly, and a handshake like boiled lasagna noodles. Wolfgang Wallace mustered a grin.

“If you would all care to step inside?" The click of their shoes on the marble floor echoed throughout the vast lobby. "Your vid indicated that you were interested in tomorrow's software release."

"Most keen on it, very keen! Arrived early to let the lad here have a look-see before all the hubbub tomorrow. Thought we'd get the tour now, then nip off to see a factory I own a bit further north, over the border, then back here tomorrow for the unveiling."

"You're not here to see the management and officers at all today, then? Should I have Mr. Kipling join us?"