Massively Multiplayer (30 page)

The only habitation, or indeed sign of human presence, was a squat gray building, seemingly carved from wedges of the dark gray stone which made up the mountains themselves. There was a large stable and a few other outbuildings typical of an isolated lodge, but the overall impression of the place was far from welcoming. A battered sign swinging in the breeze identified the structure as the Greyface Travelers’ Rest and Trading Post, Bartlett Vermilion proprietor, No Trolls Allowed.

“Friendly looking sort of place, isn’t it?” commented Druin.

“Indeed, sirrah,” replied Malcolm. His demeanor revealed no trace of their earlier conversation, and Druin didn’t press him.

“After you,” he offered, as behind them, with a rattle of harness and the crack of a whip, the coach rattled away.

Marybeth Langridge was having a lovely dream. She was wearing Amitra’s semi-medieval clothing, but she was standing in the parking lot of the Archimago building, watching the sunset. The waters of the Puget Sound were transformed from their usual iron-gray gloom to ribbons of orange and gold. She was filled with a sense of peace and strangely joyous anticipation. She knew that if she wanted to, she could step out over the water, and glide across the surface like a hoverboat. Wolfgang Wallace was standing next to her, with that benevolently amused expression he often wore. He was humming, some classy bit of music she’d heard once. He opened his mouth, and she expected him to sing. Instead, he asked gently “do you want some coffee?”

“Mmm?”

“I said do you want some coffee? Mocha? Espresso?”

She opened her eyes. The glare from the overhead halogen lamp cut into her skull like a saw blade. She moaned. “Coffee?”

“I only suggest it because you look about as bad as I feel. Oh. No offense. You look great. I mean...”

“One second.” She rubbed her eyes, which felt like they’d been scoured with a fine sandpaper, and looked around carefully through slitted lids.

She was in the employee lounge on the top floor, sitting on the edge of a leather couch which still bore the impression of where she’d flung her body after the endless night of work. Wolfgang Wallace was kneeling next to her with a concerned look she found kind of sweet and offering two steaming mugs of something which smelled even sweeter.

“No offense?” he seemed honestly concerned.

“None taken. Offense, I mean. I’ll take the coffee.”

She accepted the nearest cup and burned her lips and throat with the contents. She coughed and regarded the dark liquid skeptically. “Did you make this?”

“Yeah, nobody else is here yet but the workaholics and, oddly enough, Mr. Calloway. Couldn’t find the sugar, so I used one of those flavored syrups.”

“It’s terrible. How did you last so long in Seattle without knowing how to make coffee?”

“Just lucky?”

She took another gulp of the foul brew. “So did you tell him about our surprise guest last night?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“The oddest thing is that he didn’t seem all that surprised. Almost like he had an idea it would be something like this -- old employee returns from the grave sort of thing. He acted...guilty.”

She watched him carefully over her steaming cup. “You’re thinking about what Tenser said about his motives? That ‘ask your boss’ crack?”

He shrugged. “I really can’t help it. You’ve got to understand, Marcus Tenser was…is…a brilliant guy. More than a little obsessive about his work, very concerned with the philosophical sort of mystical approach to programming, a little nuts maybe, but absolutely straight-arrow honest, in his way. It’s like a religion with him. I can’t imagine he’d just be yanking our chains. If he says his motives have to do with Calloway, they do.”

“Honest? Funny word for a guy who’s hacked the living daylights out of our system and taken over the house intranet.”

“Maybe honest is a bad word. Try ‘sincere.’ He was always going on at us about how important it was to approach a problem, a program, a system with great ‘sincerity.’ None of us had any clue what he meant by that, but it was obvious he took it seriously. It was part of their whole design philosophy thingy. Persistent effort, close observation, challenging the established order, all done with this kind of Zen-like sincerity...”

“Thingy. Is that a technical term?

“It is now.”

The intercom suddenly beeped into life overhead. “Mr. Wallace?” came the voice of the first floor receptionist. “There’s a Mr. Blanks here to see you. Would you like to meet him here, or shall I send him up the lounge? Or to your office?”

Wolfgang looked at Marybeth, who shrugged in confusion.

“Reception?” Wolfgang said to the ceiling, “I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting anyone this morning, and the name doesn’t ring a bell. Could you find out what he needs please?”

They waited in silence as the receptionist consulted with their mysterious visitor. Marybeth slurped her coffee nervously. It tasted filthy, but it was waking her up. Maybe that was good enough.

“Mr. Wallace?” the intercom crackled, “Mr. Blanks doesn’t have an appointment. but says he has to speak with you about a Mr. Tenser?”

“Oh brother,” Wolfgang put his face in his hands, “so much for keeping things quiet. Calloway’s going to kill me.” Louder, he asked, “Reception, did he say who sent him?”

Again, there was a moment’s silence.

“Mr. Wallace, Mr. Blanks says he is from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Marybeth gulped reflexively. Wolfgang’s coffee was even worse going down.

The interior of the Greyface Travelers’ Rest and Trading Post was about as welcoming as the outside. Slab-like tables, possibly hewn from the same dull rock as the building itself, were scattered around a single greatroom. To the rear of the building, an orange glow proclaimed a kitchen, and to one side a simple plank declared “No Beds Free” in the common sleeping chamber. The host, who Druin supposed was the “Bartlett Vermillion” named on the sign outside, proved a good deal more cheerless than his colorful name implied. A dumpy little man in a leather apron, he was scowling behind the bar, along with an assortment of tack, weaponry, and other equipment arranged in piles along the bartop and on the wall behind him. The whole affair, bar, barkeep and provisioning store, was wrapped in a sort of cage made of sturdy steel bars. Druin guessed it was a simple anti-theft precaution, one which spoke volumes about the type of clientele who must frequent this dreary place.

“Very friendly,” he repeated to Malcolm. “But now what?”

“Now you come with me.”

The speaker was a man standing over Malcolm’s shoulder. Druin noticed he was about forty-five, he noticed that he had a prominent nose and slightly bulging eyes, but mostly he noticed that he was weighed down by more weapons than Druin had ever seen on a single human being before.

How did he get so close without clanking
, Druin wondered. There was a machete on one hip, and a throwing-axe on the other, a quiver of javelins over one shoulder and the handle of a sword peeking from behind his hip. A complex network of harnesses criss-crossed his chest, surmounted by a bandolier. His gauntlets, below the wrist-mounted miniature crossbows, had built-in brass knuckles. Throwing knives, darts, and less identifiable bits of metal were strapped down the length of his legs.

The lethal apparition smiled, and Druin wouldn’t have been surprised to see that his teeth had been filed down to sharp points. They weren’t, which was a small mercy. Nevertheless, there was simply no way to feel entirely comfortable faced with a smile which had that much hardware backing it up.

“You must be Druin Reaver. Who’s this?”

“Uh, that would be Malcolm. Sir Malcolm.”

“Warden Ghostmaker.” A hand was stuck out. Druin shook it cautiously, and counted his fingers afterwards.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Warden Ghostmaker, gesturing to a group seated at one of the slab-like tables. “Welcome to the Whetstone Pass.”

“Welcome to Archimago Technologies, Mr. Blanks. What can we do for you?”

Bernardo Calloway’s voice was mild, but his eyes were snapping rapidly back and forth between Wolfgang Wallace and the representatives from the FBI. Blanks, an almost stereotypically clean-cut man in his forties, had not arrived alone. Two men and a woman had trotted behind him into the elevator before Wolfgang could protest, and had accompanied them silently all the way to Calloway’s office. They had occupied the conference room adjoining the President’s suite, and, along with Marybeth and Wolfgang, settled into chairs at the long table, seemingly intent on the exchange between Blanks and Bernardo.

“Good morning, Mr. Calloway. I’m grateful that you’ve made your offices available to our investigation.”

Bernardo, who hadn’t been aware that he had done anything of the sort, raised an eyebrow. “Investigation, Mr. Blanks? Of what, precisely?”

“We understand that a man named Marcus Tenser has recently contacted your offices. Is that true?”

Wolfgang tried to shrug with his eyes, signifying that he hadn’t told anyone outside his team of Tenser’s activities, and had nothing to do with Blanks’ abrupt appearance.

“Marcus...Tenser?” Bernardo asked carefully, as though he weren’t quite sure he’d heard the name. “What is this man supposed to have done?”

Blanks smiled politely. “I’m sure you’re busy, and we would certainly like to minimize our interference in your regular operations.”

“Very kind of you,” Bernardo said with obvious relief.

“Perhaps we should move our inquiries elsewhere.”

“How very accommodating.”

“We appreciate your cooperation. Can we contact you at these offices if we need to?”

“Yes, that would be fine.

“And do you have Tenser’s address yet?”

“No,” Calloway admitted. “We haven’t finished...that....” Too late, he realized he had just admitted to knowing roughly who Tenser was. So much for playing innocent.

Mr. Blanks’ smile broadened.

“Perhaps you ought to speak with Mr. Wallace,” Bernardo finished lamely. “He’s the one with the most...immediate...information, I should think.”

Blanks turned his smile on Wolfgang. So did the other FBI agents. Wolfgang swallowed involuntarily.

“Mr. Wallace?”

“Yes?”

“I would be grateful if you would tell me about your contact with Marcus Tenser.”

So he told them.

The narrative took over an hour, and at its end the various Agents looked more confused than they had before Wolfgang began.

“So Mr. Tenser has infiltrated your little game...”

“It’s hardly ‘little’,” sniffed Bernardo. “The Crucible property is one of the most expensive, and most profitable, digital entertainment franchises in the world.”

Blanks managed to remain unimpressed. “He has infiltrated your very profitable game, then, compromised your security system, and apparently set up housekeeping on your corporate servers...and you have no idea why?”

“That’s about the shape of it,” Wolfgang admitted.

“It might help,” Marybeth Langridge suggested timidly, “if we knew why the FBI was so interested in him.”

“Technically, we’re not.”

“Pardon?”

“I am here on behalf of the Bureau to act as a liaison and coordinator for a cross-agency investigation. The FBI’s digital crimes department generally concerns itself with acts of organized crime, such as data smuggling, money laundering, and so on. Since most computer crime crosses state lines, we also have jurisdiction over a good deal of routine hacking, industrial espionage, and so on. But as far as the Bureau is concerned, Mr. Tenser has not, technically, been a person of interest.”

“Then why are you...”

“Allow me to introduce my colleagues,” Blanks continued smoothly. “Mr. Verner and Mr. Hamilton of Pentagon Intelligence, and Ms. Sumter of the National Security Agency.”

“Allow me to introduce my colleagues,” said Warden Ghostmaker.

The group seated at the table were about as diverse an assemblage as Druin had ever seen gathered before. The young woman with the Asian features to Ghostmaker’s left, for instance, was wearing no visible weapons at all. In his mind, Druin pegged her as the more dangerous of the two. Ghostmaker’s fantastic display of weaponry could be the result of insecurity, over-preparedness, or simply an enthusiasts appreciation of the many ways in which to deal out damage. The young woman, on the other hand, possessed the unnerving assurance of those for whom the threat of visible armaments are absolutely unnecessary.

“I am pleased to greet you,” she said in the clipped tones which indicated Crucible’s translating software was working overtime. “I am to be called Enduring Diamond Butterfly.”

“That would be
Princess
Enduring Diamond Butterfly,” Ghostmaker said quietly to Druin, with a hint of obvious pride in the title’s reflected glory. “A peer of the Stellar Empire, nineteenth-circle, and about fifth in line for the heptarchy of the all-Asian server.”

Butterfly inclined her head in graceful acknowledgment. “No titles are essential, Mr. Ghostmaker, Mr. Reaver,” she said, the translation trailing the motion of her lips in a manner that Druin found spectacularly unnerving. “We are all calling here for the same purpose. Our individual virtues will prove more telling than merely aristocracy.”

“Yeah, but the royal touch don’t hurt,” Ghostmaker observed. He gestured at the man on the Princess’ left. “And we got two. This here’s Rajah Golden-Spear. The spear’s in his other pants.”

“Hah hah,” the tan-skinned Rajah said humorlessly. “Two jests in two seconds. A new record for our host.” He stood, leaning over the table to bow with his hands clasped before his chest. “Namaste, Druin Reaver, Sir Malcolm. I greet you and wish you welcome.” He was of clearly Indian extraction, wearing a long belted tunic which Druin might have identified as ‘saffron’ if he were of a more artistic bent. as it was, he thought of the man’s loose-fitting garb as ‘orange’. He thought of the curved sword tucked into Rajah’s sash as ‘sharp-looking.’

“Rajah’s got no sense of humor,” Ghostmaker opined for Druin’s benefit. Not like Dinah here.” The gray-haired woman next to Rajah waved at them.