Massively Multiplayer (45 page)

Dinah glared right back at him as the warrior turned his back disdainfully to inspect the golden door which lay behind the sarcophagus.

“Locked,” he pronounced. “And old bones in there’s got the key, I reckon.”

“Maybe not,” Druin murmured, bending to retrieve the bit of metal he’d noticed. It was the knobbed crest of the skeleton’s golden crown, knocked loose by Malcolm’s flailing sword. He inspected the jagged edges, then offered it to Ghostmaker.

Ghostmaker grunted, then jammed the long wedge into the door’s keyhole. With a moan of ancient hinges, it swung ponderously open.

They had reached the next tomb.

Andrew pulled off his goggles, tried to lean back and found he was already leaning back as far as he could, fully reclined on the ragged virtualounge in his bedroom. He suffered a moment of intense vertigo. Druin had been standing
up
while he was lying
down
so he wall was the ceiling and the floor was the wall and...

..he shut his eyes tightly and tried not to fall off the world.

“Orange juice?”

“Guh?” He opened his eyes.

Sara was there with a frosty glass. “You’re really articulate when you log out, you know that? Have some orange juice. You’re dehydrated. Mom and Dad gave me a long lecture about how it helps when you’ve been in for a long time.” She put on her innocent face. “I wouldn’t know of course. I’m not allowed to log in for more than four hours straight.”

Andrew sat up and accepted the glass. “Where are they, anyway?”

“I made them go to sleep. They don’t know that. They think they talked me into helping you get to bed after your session so they could talk to you fresh in the morning.”

Andrew snorted around a mouthful of juice. “Listen to you. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth...”

“That’s thankless children,” she scoffed, flouncing herself onto his bed. “I’m not thankless, just manipulative. Besides, I figured it would be my only chance to talk to my brother, the secret agent.”

“I’m not a secret agent. I’m not a secret anything.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, suddenly serious. “You’re really bad at secrets. Too honest. I told you before, you’re a good guy. That’s why all this FBI stuff is creepy.”

He winced, thinking of the deception he was practicing on his party, and of the further deceptions he thought he might be witnessing between Dinah and Ghost, to say nothing of the burden of knowing too uncomfortably much of Malcolm’s motives. And given her characteristic silence, who could tell what the enigmatic Princess Butterfly was really up to?

Suspicion was unusual for him and made his head hurt. “I’m not feeling particularly honest recently,” he muttered.

Sara raised an eyebrow. “You’re feeling guilty? Well that settles it.”

“Settles what?”

“You must be fine. Trust me, big bother, you have no reason to feel bad.”

He blinked owlishly. “That makes no sense. I’m feeling weird about lying to people, so that proves I’ve done nothing wrong to feel bad about?”

She shook her head. “No, llama. It means you’re normal. You’re being yourself.”

“Huh?”

“Again with the articulation. I’ll feed it to you slowly.” She looked at him very seriously and spoke in solemn tones. “Almost everybody lies a little bit all the time. Most people don’t feel bad about it. You do, so you always try to play fair. That’s what I was talking about back at the mall. You’re good. You’re a good person. That bad feeling you’ve got is because you’ve got a strong conscience, and it’s working fine. You won’t do anything too wrong.”

He opened his mouth but she shushed him with a raised finger. “I didn’t say you couldn’t do anything wrong. But you wouldn’t if you knew, and could help it. Not on purpose. It’s a big difference between you and most people. Sometimes it makes me worry about you. Right now, though, when it sounds like a lot of people are lying to you, I think it’s going to keep you safe.”

They sat in silence for a while. He broke the tension finally with an embarrassed chuckle. “You really worry about me, huh? Lucky me, my sister’s going to keep the bad people of the world from corrupting her big brother.”

She shook her head “You’re dim. Just because I’m young and cynical and you’re old and idealistic doesn’t mean you need protection from the big bad world.”

“No?”

“No. It’s one of the nice things about knowing you. You never anticipate jerks and their jerky behavior, but you always seem to come out okay.”

He brightened. “You think?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sounded nice, though, didn’t it?” She stood. “We should both get to sleep.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Now you do sound like Mom.”

She sketched a bow at the door. “Thank you. Wouldn’t want you to miss your nightly dosage.”

Subject: RE: unresolved

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Matteo, no can do. i almost got the littl b14atch this morning, gave hima scare. Hes too wary though, your stupid eytalian friend got his wind up! Can’t do him anyway theyd all see and then i’m allready looking too suspicious to this lot. That old cow is riding me like a bangarda.

his clumsy lama friend half hacked my arm off and i can’t fight them all off if they go spare.

Besides if somoeons gonna stick a knife in this n00b dont you wanna be there to see it?

- Ghost

Chapter Nineteen - Endgames

“Mr. Tenser?”

“I’m listening.”

“Good morning. I’ve been in consultation with my superiors at the Bureau and they’ve spoken with the relevant...”

“We’re on short time now, Agent Blanks.” Tenser’s voice was tinny through the tiny speakers of Blanks’ laptop, but his tension was evident even so.

“Fair enough.” Blanks pulled a smartPad from his breast pocket and read from his notes. “Based on the sample documents you’ve submitted, we are prepared to offer you full amnesty in regards to violation of federal and state anti-intrusion laws. Your resignation from the NSA’s Special Office for Counterintelligence Technologies has been backdated to your last regular appearance at their Washington offices. We can’t promise anything about violations of the Multinational Corporate Acts or other international legislation, but I think that they’ll find it unusually difficult to deport you. I suggest you not plan on any international travel.”

“I get airsick anyway.”

“Incidentally, I would have had an easier time with more complete dossiers. The information on Turbati was incomplete...”

“I told you it was.”

“...but sufficiently convincing that you’ve got the right person. We’ll want Baddersford’s data too. I should mention no-one is interested in touching the Komonu stuff, so if you’re pressed for time...”

“What, no one in Japan cares about organized crime?”

“Not as much as they care about preserving the illusion of information sanctity for their multinationals.”

“Ah.”

“This other file...uh, ‘Rajah Goldenspear’ was the alias...”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite know. I strongly suspect that he’s a member of the Pakistani separatist movement, but I didn’t get much out of his computer before my connection was cut off.”

“Never mind. The Americans, Andrew Hunter and Malcolm Bleeker? We’ve done our own investigation on those two, but we’d like you to confirm it.”

“Serendipity. I wasn’t initially trying to involve them at all. I was aiming for a guy called ‘MadHarp.’ You’d know him as Matteo Herrera. He’s a Captain in the SRDP, Nicaragua. I got turned onto him because he was a contact of Baddersford – they met at a South American paramilitary training camp. He’s been on Amnesty International’s most-wanted list for years.”

“We don’t work for Amnesty International,” said Blanks.

“I know. Maybe you should think about it. This guy’s a thug. Anyway, he missed the boat and Druin – the Hunter kid – stumbled into the quest zone I’d set up for Herrera. I watched him for a little while and realized that he was just what I needed. Bleeker invited himself along.”

Blanks replaced his pad in his pocket thoughtfully. “What you needed?”

“In order to set up the sting, I needed to keep a bunch of hyper-aggressive murderers so interested in their game that they wouldn’t notice me ripping into their files. Put a pack of scorpions in a bottle and shake it – they’ll sting each other to death. So I recruited an anti-Catalyst. Hunter is quiet, he’s calm, he’s thoughtful. Nice kid. He’s like social glue – hopefully strong enough to hold together this little megalomaniacs convention until I’ve got all their data.”

“You’re using them as stalking horses....for what you suspected at the time, and now know, are some very, very dangerous people?”

“Don’t take that innocent tone with me, Mr. F-B-I. I’m well aware that you contacted Hunter yourself, once you cleared him. What did you do, set him up as an informant when you thought I was selling info?”

Blanks remained silent.

“Besides, the danger here is entirely virtual. They can’t get his IP or address from here. It’s a game, Agent Blanks. I swear, you people take this stuff so seriously.”

“Andrew?”

“Yeah dad?”

“That was Mr. Sharps. Agent Sharps. The FBI. guy. They say they’re ready for you to go back in now.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

There was a long pause while equipment was checked, velcro ties carefully fastened and refastened, paint and door moldings analyzed for smudges, shoes contemplated, and pretty much every other possible function two human beings could have in the same room while carefully not talking to one another.

“Uh...Andrew?”

“Mmm?”

“Your mom and I think that...well if anything...you know we trust your judgment.”

That produced a significant pause.

“You do?”

“Of course we do. And if anything seems, you know, not right, or if anyone asks you to do anything, well, we know you’ll do the right thing.”

“You do?”

“Sure we do. We trust your judgment. Didn’t you know that?”

“No. Not really. You’ve never said.”

“Haven’t I? Huh. Well now I have. We trust you.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck, son.”

Druin was first awake this time. Perhaps Ghostmaker – or whoever was on the other end of Ghostmaker – had stayed up late last night, drowning the annoyance of his virtual injuries.

For that matter, none of them looked very well off. Malcolm sported an assortment of cuts and scrapes, and even Dinah had acquired a large bruise over her right temple, a memento of their running fight with the dustmen of the first tomb. Druin knew he too must look like he’d been fighting his way through underground caverns for days, mostly because he had been. Only Princess Enduring Diamond Butterfly remained uninjured, and her clothing was even relatively dirt free. Maybe she had some sort of dry-cleaning spell.

They had made it through the golden doors of the third tomb last night and sealed them, hoping that the mummified guardian would be unable to follow them now that they had possession of its key.

Away from the golden door, a vaulted passageway led into darkness. It looked like every other passageway leading into darkness Druin had seen over the past few weeks. Frankly, Druin was getting tired of passageways leading into darkness. Just for a change, he’d like to encounter a passageway leading into a well-lit inn.

“Good morrow, Druin.”

“Malcolm. You look like chipped beef.”

“Indeed, our scars bear testament to our valor.”

“I must admit I’m a little surprised GhostMaker didn’t bear testament to your sword-work with your headless corpse.”

Malcolm looked abashed. “Just so. I, uh, got a little carried away.”

“Forsooth. I think Captain Thunder mentioned classes at the Y.’ But, uh...Malcolm?”

“Yea, friend?”

“When you were hacking on that thing...when you, uh, slipped...did you...feel anything?”

“Anything?”

Druin looked uncomfortably at his shoes. He didn’t really have any evidence that Dinah had pushed Malcolm. He wasn’t even sure he’d seen it himself. “Anything like...a push?”

Malcolm looked confused. “I think not. I was fairly well engaged with the beast, of course. Didst thou—“

“Good morning, children.” Druin spun to find Dinah, grinning broadly at him. “A good day to conclude our business.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Druin, did you—“

“Forget it, Malcolm. Let’s get the wardstones down.”

“Oh. Okay. Forsooth. Though methinks that if yon door hath remained sealed these many centuries, there be little here that may be of danger.”

“Yeah, right,” said Druin absently. “Just us.”

When Bernardo Calloway got to his office, he found that Mrs. Hernandez’ smile had faded entirely. Or, rather, he would have found this had he paid more than a passing glance at his secretary. Instead, he divided his attention between a blistering hot cup of tea and his smartPaper, streaming this morning’s stock market feeds, so that he entirely ignored her attempt to get his attention. If the truth must be told, she didn’t try all that hard – she was frankly looking forward to him getting what she suspected would be a nasty surprise.