Massively Multiplayer (46 page)

So Bernardo was entirely unprepared when he got to his office only to find Wolfgang Wallace and MaryBeth Langridge waiting inside for him. Their expressions were grim.

“Uh, Wallace, Langrudge...”

“Langridge.”

“Right, Langridge, of course, to what do I, um, owe the uh, pleasure?”

Wolfgang scowled across the room at him. “Have you seen this morning’s Mortar and Pestle?”

Bernardo, who prided himself on his industry savvy, blinked furiously as he searched for the reference. “Uh...trade journal of some kind, right?”

“Not quite, MaryBeth corrected him. “It’s the oldest and largest community newsletter of the Crucible players’ network. You know, Crucible? The game we make here?”

Bernardo didn’t have to affect a shocked expression. “Ms. Langridge! Whatever has gotten into you?”

“You mean what’s gotten into our game, don’t you?” She brandished a smartPaper in his face, a professional-looking newsFeed with a stylized mortar and pestle in the upper corners.

“EU Sources Confirm 4.0 Data Suspicions,” the headline blared. In only slightly smaller font, the sub-header explained: “Commercial Texture Files May Violate Copyright, Subliminal Advertising Laws.” An editorial sidebar asked “Are You in Danger?”

Bernardo swallowed noisily. The hand gripping his tea trembled slightly. He’d known this would come, but he hadn’t expected it nearly so soon, and not from this quarter. “I’m sure that some explanation is...” he began.

“Oh, we’re dying to hear it,” MaryBeth assured him, as Wolfgang stepped around him to close the office door.

So far, Malcolm’s sunny prediction had proven true. The vicious dust-creatures which had plagued their progress through the first two tombs were not in evidence. Also unlike those previous vaults, This tomb was clean and undisturbed. A thin and even coating of chalky dust on the floor swirled underneath their feet, illuminated by the light of Butterfly’s wand and Dinah’s staff. Ghostmaker, as usual, had taken the front position, and relegated Malcolm to the rear where he would, in Ghostmaker’s unkind terms, “do the least damage.” Druin hung back and kept him company, hustled forward from time to time in order to check for traps along the solitary passage which curled downwards in a vast and subtle spiral.

Thus it was that Druin and Malcolm were the last of the party to recognize when they arrived at the first gate.

“Hold up,” Ghostmaker barked. “Thief, front and center!”

Druin shrugged at Malcolm and trotted up the line, sure he’d find yet one more tiny crack in the stone floor which had set the hulking warrior’s teeth on edge.

Instead, he found Ghostmaker and Butterfly standing before a gleaming portcullis – gold again, Druin guessed – which crossed the hall and halted their progress. Before the gate stood a statue on a short column of gray marble of a cloaked and hooded figure.

“Check it out,” order Ghostmaker.

Dinah was scrutinizing the statue, her eyes glowing with the dim light which told Druin she had magically enhanced her vision again. “I’ve gone over it already. There are no traps—“

“Check it,” said Ghostmaker tightly.

Druin shrugged and looked the thing over. Man-sized, looked like it had been carved from a single piece of marble. One arm was raised, as if to halt would-be travelers. The folds of cloth and cowl hid both hands and any hint of facial features – from what Druin could dimly see inside the hood, the sculptor appeared to have been satisfied to leave its interior blank. The bottom of the statue’s ‘robe’ melded with the short cylindrical stand, which was unadorned. There were no tell-tale hints of red that he could see, no warnings or threats he could perceive.

“Looks clean,” he pronounced.

Ghostmaker grunted, then gestured angrily at the portcullis. “Then how do we get through the gate here?”

“Persist,” said the statue.

“So you admit that you incorporated these files into the update without informing Archimago, the customers...anybody?”

Bernardo sniffed. “Legally, I don’t need to explain myself to you nor anyone else, Wallace. The EULA rights and limitations are quite clear, and I have every certainty they’ll be held up in court.”

“And what if they don’t?”

Ghostmaker and Dinah jumped back, weapons readied, but Druin figured quickly that if the thing meant them harm, they’d have been dead by now. “Persist,” he repeated. “Persist how?”

But the statue had returned to obstinate silence. Tentatively, Ghostmaker gave it a shove. It didn’t budge. “Bollocks,” he said thoughtfully. “What’s ‘persist,’ mean, then?”

“It means ‘continue’,” Dinah offered helpfully.

“I bloody well know that!” Ghostmaker shouted. “I meant what does it mean about this damn gate here?” He swung his sword to indicate the gleaming portcullis.

The sword passed through the bars as though they didn’t exist. Ghostmaker barely pulled up in time to avoid decapitating Butterfly.

Druin waved his arm through the bars. He stepped through them to the other side, then turned and shrugged to the other party members. “Persist means ‘continue,’” he said. “I guess we carry on.”

“And besides,” Bernardo went on, almost babbling “do you have any idea how much money we’re discussing? In the European market alone, we have advertising commitments which are double the entire current income base. We could triple, even quadruple, the cash flow of this company, and that’s just the beginning...”

Wallace shook his head. “You’re still not listening. That projection is based on you providing those advertisers access to our current clientele.”

“And?”

“When this hits the courts, the clients are going to run for the hills. We’ll have no clients left, no income from them, and therefore soon no income from advertisers. The company will go bankrupt within a year.”

For the first time, Bernardo seemed honestly uncertain. “What makes you so sure? Most netFeeds are full of advertisements, just like the old television nets used to be, and radio before that. Clients flocked to those media sources. I don’t see why—“

“Aren’t you listening?” Marybeth seethed. “Our clients aren’t a random cross-section of the populace. The one thing we trade in, more than any other, is the opportunity to escape that everyday mentality. Turn Crucible into one more mini-mall, and they’ll jump overboard.”

Bernardo looked skeptical.

“And if they don’t do it on their own,” Wolfgang added, “Marcus Tenser will make sure that they do.”

Bernardo put a hand on his chin, eyebrows furrowed deeply in thought. “Even if you’re right, I’ve already had the files removed...”

“Too late.” Wolfgang shook his head. “Sumter showed me a list of your deletions yesterday. The Feds already know.”

“But then...” Bernardo looked seriously worried now. “The only reason they wouldn’t have asked me about them...”

“Is if they’re busy building a case against you,” MaryBeth concluded. “And Archimago.”

There was a long pause as Bernardo Calloway absorbed this information. His father’s influence was vast, but only when he chose to invoke it, and in this case...

“What do you suggest?”

“I suggest,” said Wolfgang gravely, “that you make a deal.”

“With the Feds?”

“With Marcus Tenser.”

The second time they were stopped by a gate, Ghostmaker actually hit them a few times with the flat of his sword. “They’re real this time,” he growled as Druin marched forward to search them for traps.

Another statue, apparently identical to the previous one, stood before the gate. “Any ideas what this one wants?” Druin asked as he concluded his search.

“Why don’t you ask it?” snarled Ghostmaker.

Druin shrugged. “How do we get past the gate?”

“Observe,” said the statue.

Wolfgang and Marybeth waited until they were sure the door to her office was locked before they embraced, both letting out sighs of relief. Just when their relief was turning into something else, they were interrupted by a crackle from Marybeth’s desk.

“Well, children? Did he go for it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it,” Druin admitted gloomily. “No lock, so I can’t pick it. No hinges. We’ve tried lifting it, and it’s too heavy...”

“Can’t break it,” Ghostmaker chimed in as he stowed the axe he’d been using to prove that fact.

The group stared at the bars for a long while in silence.

“Observe,” Dinah said finally. “It’s a riddle, of course. The statue at the first gate said we must ‘persist,’ and once we did so, the barrier was not an issue. The answer here is not in strength, but in observation. Everyone take a section and look closely.”

They spent the next several minutes peering at the bars from only inches away. Princess Enduring Diamond Butterfly actually got down on her hands and knees and looked closely at the joints between the bars and the floor.

“Magic it,” ordered Ghostmaker.

Butterfly knelt and placed her hands on the floor, flanking the central bar of the gate. She hummed softly for a few minutes.

“It is impossible,” she declared finally. “This gate is sealed to the floor, the ceiling, and both walls. It cannot be removed, and apparently cannot be broken through.”

“Then....” Malcolm started, but then fell silent.

“What,” Druin urged him.

“Well, maybe we shouldn’t be observing the gate.”

They exchanged a glance. Everyone shifted their gazes to contemplate the statue. There was a long silence, punctuated by Ghostmaker’s grunts of annoyance. After an exhaustive examination which turned up no buttons, switches, levers, slides, or mysterious holes, the party backed away. Ghostmaker and Dinah looked openly annoyed, Druin noticed, while the Princess had her inscrutable firmly in place. It didn’t fool him for a moment. She was as clueless as he was. And Malcolm…where was Malcolm?

The young knight was standing at the statue’s side, pointing gingerly at its upraised arm. “Er…forsooth,” he mumbled hesitantly. “Wasn’t the other hand raised on the first statue?” Malcolm asked.

Ghostmaker reached out and pressed the offending limb down sharply.

The gate vanished. Princess Butterfly favored Malcolm with a brilliant smile.

Blanks sipped his coffee. “So each time they go through these gates, the server uploads a bundle of spy-ware.”

“Just so. Of course their firewall just thinks they’re loading the next detail zone. That’s why I’ve had to space the material out over such a long time.”

“And at the same time, you get to observe them, make sure you’ve got the right subjects. I admit it’s a slick operation, Mr. Tenser. Are we to assume you’ll be handing it over to us entirely once your last upload is complete? How many total suspects have you been monitoring, anyway?”

“About fifty. This crew are just those I got farthest with. Once I’ve perfected the technique with them, you can…” There was a sharp pinging sound from Tenser’s end of the connection. “You’ll have to excuse me, Agent Blanks. That’s my cue.”

When they reached the third gate, Druin wasn’t even surprised.

“So, how do we open this one then,” Ghostmaker demanded of the by now expected statue.

“Challenge,” it answered in the voice of Marcus Tenser.

“Getts? This is Sumter from NSA. Yes, I’m still on that case with Blanks. He has asked me to get confirmation of certain programmatic codes, pursuant to the investigation. I need the passwords to the black files stored on Hunter’s computer. Yes, I’ll hold.”

“Challenge,” Druin said flatly.

“The statues provide clues for passing through each gate,” mused Dinah aloud. “This is the third statue. Three statues, three gates?”

“How do we know this is all of ‘em?” Ghostmaker demanded petulantly. “We could be at this all bleedin’ day!”

“Parallelism,” Dinah explained patiently. “Like the three disciples of Mender, or the three tombs...”

“Yet we encountered only two tombs, two challenges” Butterfly pointed out.

“Unless this series of gates is the third challenge,” Dinah countered.

“Who bloody well cares?” snarled Ghostmaker. “I’m sick of riddles, sick of barriers, sick of wandering around underground with you sorry lot—“

“Why then feel free to proceed without us.”

“Open it and I will, you daft old bat!”

“Challenge,” pondered Malcolm, his brow furrowed. “Challenge grants. Calls to challenge…”

“Challenger shuttle,” Druin offered. “Mentally challenged. Challenge match…”

“…Challenger in a prizefight...,” said Malcolm. “Mayhap if one somehow were to fight, to issue a challenge...” He trailed off into embarrassed silence.

“That makes no sense at all,” said Dinah coldly. “How do you ‘challenge’ a gate?”

“Like this!” Ghostmaker clapped an arm down on Malcolm’s shoulder and pivoted, slamming the younger man heavily against the gate with a resounding crash. Stunned, Malcolm tried to turn, but Ghostmaker had grabbed his hair and was smashing his face against the bars over and over.

“Uh...Marcus? Is this part of the plan?”

“No this isn’t part of the plan. I need them to stick together for just a few more minutes...”

“There!” Ghostmaker shrieked. “You like your stupid bloody puzzles now?!? ‘Challenge’ this, you stupid git and your stupid puzzles!”

“He has gone mad,” shouted Dinah grimly and raised her staff. Butterfly already had her wand in hand and her fingers were spitting sparks as she hissed something short and deadly.

“Hold it! Hold it!” Druin yelled. “Not the gate! Not the gate! The statue!” He was surprised to find that he was hanging from Ghostmaker’s arm. Ghostmaker had stopped pounding Malcolm, not because Druin could actually have stopped him but out of sheer amazement that anyone had actually dared to lay hold of him.

“What the hell are you going on about then?”

“It’s not the gate, it’s the statue!” Druin repeated. “Persist, we persisted past the statue – the gate wasn’t even really there. And when we got told to observe, we weren’t supposed to observe the bars, we were supposed to pay attention to the statue. So if we’re going to challenge something...”