Massively Multiplayer (39 page)

“What makes you say that?”

“Do
not
assume I’m a fool,” Ghostmake hissed. “Dinah and her-Princess-ship over there, they’re what you call ‘administrative’ types. They’ve both got reps for getting nasty work done, but usually don’t get their own hands dirty. Not me. I seen plenty of dust-ups, and I can tell where an arrow’s being aimed. Now I don’t know why that stupid bugger on the hill was shooting at you. Comes down to it, I don’t really care.”

Ghostmaker leaned forward suddenly, and the blue sheen of the warstones illuminated his savage expression. He jabbed at Druin’s, the blade just short of his eyes.

“But you mark me: if you even
think
of stabbing us in the back – you even
think
it – and you’re going to find yourself in little bleedin’ pieces all over the bleedin’ map, mate? You get me? Huh?”

“Yes, yes, I get you. No problem.” Druin tried to raise his hands defensively without actually moving.

“Right.” Ghostmaker eased back. “Get up, then, mate. Here’s a hand.”

Too suddenly he was standing, pulling Druin to his feet, where he swayed unsteadily. Ghostmaker helpfully brushed dust from his shoulders.

“No harm done then, eh mate? Jolly right.” He grinned widely , and his eyes twinkled madly in the blue half-light. “Just you mark me.”

Druin fought down the urge to run like mad. “Right. Marked. I mark you. All marked up.” With that part of his brain not devoted to keeping an eye on Ghostmaker’s hands, he wondered whether that Mark Tenser guy had chosen this particular bunch of adventurers because they were psychos. But then, what would that make him?

“My, my, what early birds are among us.” Dinah’s rough, grandmotherly voice shook him from his reverie.

“Lady Dinah.”

“Ghost.”

Druin turned away from the chilly camaraderie to take in the chamber. His second impression confirmed the first he’d gained before they’d set the wards last night. Duster’s Tomb was, to put it bluntly, dusty. Gray walls angled up to a natural stone ceiling. The only decoration consisted of lichen and spider webs, and on consideration even those proved to be dried-out relics. Apparently the eating around these parts was none too good, even for spiders. While this didn’t promise much in the way of excitement, it also didn’t promise much in the way of imminent threats. On balance, Druin was prepared to see this as a perfectly acceptable bargain.

“Looks pretty deserted,” he muttered.

“Now in appearance,” Butterfly’s voice corrected him quietly. “Evidently that this tomb was burglarized formerly. Perhaps recently.”

Druin turned. Crucible’s translation software must be working like mad to keep up with the Princess’ formally precise language.

Up close, Princess Enduring Diamond Butterfly was even more delicately lovely than she’d appeared the previous day. It took a little effort to remember that this stereotypical flower of oriental beauty had crushed a man to death yesterday with as little effort – and as little apparent concern – as Druin might exercise on a mosquito.

“Looted, yes. Recently, no,” Ghostmaker said, kneeling by a bit of chipped wood. “This chunk here looks to have been a coffin. Maybe two. Bone fragments in it. But the edges are all crumbly and gray, where the lacquer’s gone.”

“Nah.” Ghostmaker stood. “Whoever done this place buggered off a long time ago. Years. Time enough for the spiders to move in and die of starvation.” He gestured at a particularly large mesh of web which framed the chamber’s only other exit, a rectangular passage sloping downward.

“Then we’d best hope they left us enough clues to get into the next tomb,” Dinah responded cheerfully from across the chamber. She had gathered the ward stones, assisted, Druin saw, by Malcolm, who must have awakened while he was contemplating their surroundings.

“So, where do we start looking?” he asked.

“Exploratory options appear limited,” Butterfly murmured. “That gift presented seems only expedient.”

Druin blinked in confusion.

“She means ‘that way,’” Ghostmaker supplied, gesturing at the open passageway, and putting action to word, he drew a wicked-looking short-sword from his hip sheath and led the way downwards.

“Again. You did what, precisely?”

“I confronted Wallace with the list of scheduled deletions. He denied that any such deletions were scheduled, and then once he saw the list, he backtracked and gave me a line about nightly batch processing.”

“And you’re convinced there was some prevarication...”

“No, I’m convinced he was lying through his teeth.”

Agent Blanks passed a hand over his eyes. He had left for a morning and come back to find that Sumter had taken it upon herself to advance the investigation in typical NSA style. That was, she had replaced a perfectly secure operation with a bizarre sting and counter-sting muddle which probably gave away as much information as it gathered, while proving nothing conclusive. Blanks hated the NSA.

“So, let me get this straight: you took some observations, and then when you had a suspicion about that data, you took it to the person you had the suspicions about?”

Sumter snorted. “I didn’t know Wallace was in on it until I saw his reaction to the file list. You should have seen his face when he took a closer look. He’s no actor, and he’s definitely up to something.”

“Except that even if that’s true – which I don’t necessarily believe – you’ve now alerted him to your own suspicions, and given him a better idea of the scope of our operation.”

Sumter snorted again. She did that a lot, Blanks had noticed. She could have gotten a job as a professional snorter. Not for the first time, he wished she had. Any profession other than intelligence gathering, for which her aggressive manner seemed particularly unsuited.

“All he knows is what he already knew – what
you
told him – that we’re investigating the file structure to track Tenser’s incursions. Except now we also know that he has something to hide.”

Her tone was insufferably smug, and briefly Blanks considered whether he’d save himself a lot of aggravation by getting her removed from the investigation. But no, that was the type of blundering maneuver
she
would make. Let her stay here, where he could watch her, but keep her carefully out of the loop of anything sensitive. That way he knew where she was and what she was up to. And heaven knew she might actually turn up something useful in her rampaging way. She’d already picked up something on Wallace. Maybe.

He beamed. “Well done, Agent Sumter.”

“Does he look alright to you, Lyn?”

“What do you mean? He looks like he always looks when he’s plugged in: slack-jawed. It’s the way everyone looks when they’re plugged in.”

“I just mean that the pressure...those FBI guys really managed to scare me. Terrorists? Our son is consorting with terrorists?”

“Can it, Jake. He’s not ‘consorting’ with anyone. He’s just providing them a window of observation, like any good citizen. He got an ‘A’ in civics class.”

“Since when did you become so enamored of the FBI? And what do you mean ‘everyone’ looks slack-jawed when they plug in? I don’t look slack-jawed.”

“You’ve never seen yourself. I’m not enamored of the FBI, but did you see how Andrew’s eyes lit up when he realized what they wanted him to do? Like it or not, it’s as excited as I’ve seen him all summer. No, scratch that, excited as I’ve seen him since he graduated from high-school.”

“You mean like he’s on a new adrenaline rush?”

“I mean like he’s got a purpose.”

“Oh.”

They regarded the limp form for a moment more. The FBI agents had insisted that Andrew use his battered third-hand virlo, worried that any change in his equipment might be picked up by Marcus Tenser and negate Andrew’s value as a conduit. However, they’d promised him a brand new, top-of-the-line government-issue virtualounge upon completion of the investigation.

Lynda was right, though. His reaction to the promise of free computer equipment had been bland appreciation. His reaction to the idea of playing forward-observer in a special investigation had been positively electric.

Andrew twitched in his media-induced coma.

“I don’t look slack-jawed, though.”

“I’ll take video next time. Promise.”

“So,” Marybeth said, slurping her coffee. “Are we clean?”

“I think so.” Wolfgang pocketed the slender wand he’d extracted from the FBI agents’ base of operations on the seventh floor. “If this thing’s working right, there aren’t any hookups out here. There’s barely enough Intranet signal to reach your portable.”

“It’s pretty well shielded,” Marybeth acknowledged. “I was one of the testers when they upgraded the firewall. But I did make sure the signal covered the balcony. I wouldn’t want to give up the view.”

They were standing on a semi-circular terrace on the fourth floor of the Archimago building. It was one of a series of similar covered decks jutting out of the building from every other floor. This one commanded a view of the Puget Sound which, Wolfgang had to admit, he didn’t appreciate often enough.

He pulled a narrow deck-chairs out of an untidy mess of patio furniture. “I just keep trying to tell myself that Marcus was primarily the systems designer, not a security expert.”

“Even though he designed the initial security system for the company?”

“Even though.”

“You sound real confident.” Marybeth slid another of the chairs next to his. She shivered slightly in the perpetually chill breeze off the water which even the summer sunshine couldn’t completely banish. “Well, let’s assume that we’re secure here, and tell me what’s going on with those files. I contained myself all the way here, but I’m going to burst if you don’t spill it soon.”

“You should be very proud of yourself.”

“Cut it, Wolf. I’m cold. Less praise. More explanation.”

“Right.” He opened her laptop and thumbed the holographic interface. A hazy amber cube sketched itself in the air directly over the computer, outlining the work surface. He passed the smartpaper he had acquired from Sumter through the cube of light, and was rewarded with a quiet ping.

“Okay. You have the file list now. I’m accessing my desk remotely.” His fingers drifted through the cube. Marybeth was oddly touched to notice that he didn’t bother hiding the hand-signals of his passcode from her.

“Here. This is the mail I was talking about from Calloway’s office.” He brought up the perplexing request for information in a rectangular window. “Here’s the file list. Now here’s Sumter’s list of files scheduled for erasure in the next batch process.” A second window opened. “See the files?”

“They’re the same.”

“They’re the same,” he nodded, smiling.

“Okay, I see why you’re suspicious that something up. But what exactly is it?”

“If I’m right, it’s the motive. It’s why Marcus Tenser has suddenly re-appeared at Archimago technologies. And it’s why he’s hijacked Crucible.”

“Oh I think I’m going to enjoy this.” Marybeth smiled and leaned back in her deck chair, sipping her coffee. “Let’s hear it, Inspector Clouseau.”

“Why thank you,” Wolfgang tipped an imaginary hat. “Now, to start with, these files are all the same type. Texture files. Here’s one: PC_H_h_23. That’s Player-Character, Human, hair, number 23. Here’s an audio file: Aud_ru_BSsub3. Birdsongs.”

“These are all textiles,” said Marybeth, indicating a large block of graphical files. “And these are the new olfactory components. Smells. This one’s a perfume. These ones are environmental ambience odors. Okay, I recognize them.”

“And notice they’re all new,” Wolfgang said gleefully. “All part of the new 4.0 rollout. None of these are legacy files from previous versions.”

“Why do I get the impression you’re about to make a point?”

“Because, dear Watson, these files share another common characteristic. They are all of them without exception, produced by third-party vendors. None of them are in-house textures.”

Marybeth looked blank. “And? We hire out a lot of the makework to third-party outfits.”

“And...let me confirm this with my desk...yes. Not only are these textures all from outside Archimago, they were all brought
in
to the project by the Vital Enterprises techs. None of them were purchased through our regular in-house ops.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there is something about these particular files, something which Vital Enterprises very carefully incorporated into the rollout and which they kept out of the hands of any long-term Archimago employees or administration. Something provided to them by an external vendor or vendors.”

“But what makes this so sinister that you’re seeing a conspiracy here? One which you think would have interested Marcus Tenser?”

“Because, Watson, of the strange thing the marketing division did in the night.”

There was along pause. Finally, Marybeth bit: “If you don’t spill it right now, Wolfgang Wallace, I am not going out with you ever again.”

Wolfgang clutched a hand over his heart. “You wound me!” He tapped the file list, expanding the view. “Look who authorized this morning’s deletions.”

She peered into the amber glow.

“Marketing?” She was clearly puzzled. “Why in the world...who gave the damned
Marketing
division the authority to roll-back the game textures?”

Wolfgang tapped a scroll bar and pointed.

Marybeth whistled. “I’ll be. Bernardo Calloway.”

“Yes. So why would Bernardo Calloway, all the way up in his office, be so interested in the fate of a handful of third-party texture files?”

“I have the feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“You know my methods well, Watson. I did a system-wide search for other mentions of these groups of files back when I first tracked them down for the admin’s office. Note this series of e-mails from the marketing division. And look at this payment schedule for third-party vendors from accounting. I’ve separated out those payments made to vendors of these texture files.”

Marybeth scanned the list. “Samos Shoe Corporation? Foodsource? Cosmetique Internationale? I wear their products. Wolf, none of these companies are software manufacturers. What are they doing providing texture files to an online game?”