Quest for Justice (20 page)

In response to his question, a burst of coughing issued from a hole in one corner of the room that Stan had not noticed before. From the hole emerged the most disheveled player that Stan had seen so far. He was dressed in a white lab coat with gray pants, and his gray hair stuck up in all directions. He would have looked like Albert Einstein if he didn't look so beaten. His face was sallow and sunken in, he had an unearthly stench that Stan could smell from across the room, and he was completely covered in coal dust that was mixed with a shiny, red material that Stan identified as redstone dust. He held two bottles in his hands, one of which was empty and one of which held a liquid of a sickly blue-gray color. The player gave an almighty belch before addressing the mayor.

“Hey, Turkey, we're running low on SloPo, when do you think the nomads'll be back?” his voice was slurred and giddy, reminding Stan of a player who was deep in the stages of
delirium. “Are the nomads gonna be back tomorrow? They'll be back tomorrow, and then I'll get my SloPo. I do love me my SloPo. But, wait, I'm gonna need money! Turkey, remind me to get some money later tonight, okay, old buddy, Turkey old friend?”

At that point, the player stopped his conversation with himself and noticed that he and “Turkey” (who Stan could only assume was the mayor) were not alone in the room. The player turned his dilated pupils to Stan and asked the mayor, “Who's the new meat, Turkey? He another new miner to come from, from, from the Elementia prisons? Heh-heh, good luck, little buddy, you ain't gonna last two days down in that ravine!” For some reason, the player seemed to find this extraordinarily funny, and he rolled around on the ground, banging his fist on the floor to the point where one of the wooden planks actually broke off.

The mayor simply walked over to the hysterical player on the floor and calmly said, “Mecha11, you are hereby sentenced to labor in the coal mines of Blackstone, in the Ender Desert, for as long as you should remain in this server.”

The effect of these enigmatic words on the player on the floor was instantaneous. He immediately got up and got on his knees and started crying. Through his tears he said, “As you wish, my King.” Then, without warning, he stood up and shook his head, his face looking confused. Then he appeared
as if something was dawning on him, and he looked at the mayor in disgust.

“Why do you have to do that?” he demanded.

“Well,” the mayor replied, “that's the only way that I can get you out of your trance when you're SloPoed without a golden apple, and there's somebody I want you to meet.”

Stan, who was extremely confused as to what was going on, nodded politely and tried to keep the look of confusion and fear off his face as the player was introduced as Mecha11, head of Redstone Mining Pioneering. The name rang a bell in Stan's memory.

“Wait, you're Mecha11?” he asked, dumbfounded that this wreck of a player was once in the same tier of people as the Apothecary and the Nether Boys. “I've heard of you! My name is Stan2012, and I've met the Apothecary and Bill, Ben, and Bob!”

A flash of recognition crossed Mecha11's face, but it soon returned to its uninterested state as he collapsed into one of the wooden chairs. “Well, I'm glad to hear that they're still chugging. And speaking of chugging,” he said, and he made to drink more of the potion in his hand, but the mayor slapped his hand to the side.

“Mechanist, please, don't be rude! This young man helped to stop the army from burning our train station to the ground. He deserves your respect.”

“Yeah, great job, kid,” the Mechanist sneered in a sarcastic drawl. “You made it so that we still have a gateway for the army to keep taking advantage of these people who've already wasted their lives slaving away in the Blackstone mines. So you'll forgive me if I don't thank you by offering you a free muffin.”

“Shut up, Mechanist!” whispered the mayor in urgent tones.

“What? You hate the army and the King, just the same as everybody else!”

“Yes, but there are those who you should not voice that opinion in front of!”

There was a moment of silence, and it lasted until Stan realized that they were referring to him.

“What, me? You think I'm a spy for the King?”

“He's sent them in before,” said the mayor, still keeping a keen eye on Stan for any sudden movements.

“No, trust me, I am not with the King,” said Stan, and then, a thought occurring to him, he decided to take a huge gamble. “As a matter of fact, I intend to overthrow him myself.”

The Mechanist laughed. “That's cute,” he said. “You really think that you're capable of overthrowing the King, do you?”

Stan was taken aback. It was not the first time that his plot had been met with skepticism, but there was something
in the Mechanist's voice that made Stan want to hear what he had to say.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” he replied firmly. “I've already raised an army, and as soon as we gather the necessary supplies, which we have access to, we are going to march into Element City, kill the King and his officials, and reform Elementia into a better place.”

The mayor's eyes had simply widened a little when Stan first mentioned his idea to overthrow the King, but at this latest description, he was actually running around the room from window to window, checking to see that there were no soldiers listening in. The Mechanist, completely unconcerned with being overheard, threw back his head and laughed again.

“You really do think that you can do it! That's cute.” Stan found the condescension in his voice infuriating. “But let me give you a piece of sound advice, kid:
give it up
!” He shouted this with such power and volume that Stan actually jumped, and the mayor whipped around with an iron pickaxe drawn, ready for an impending attack. Though none came, the Mechanist continued to talk in an unnecessarily loud voice.

“The King's forces are spread far and wide, all over this server. All of them are equally as cruel and brutal as he is, and there are hundreds of them. The King is not an operator anymore, but he still has an almost limitless cache of resources
from the days when he was! Also—”

“Hey, I already know all that!” interjected Stan. “And let me just point out that I intend to tap into one of those caches in order to gain the supplies for my army!”

“Kid, you have no clue what you're talking about, because it's not just the King you have to worry about! You realize that about a third of the population is heavily aligned with the King? He has a double standard for the upper class! My point is, even if you do manage to take down the King, which is an impossible dream itself, you'll never be able to completely destroy the King's evil ideals.”

“You don't understand!” cried Stan. “I've met people, I've talked to them. You don't understand just how much people hate the King and want him dead.”

“Ha!” sneered the Mechanist, an ugly look taking over his face. “The irony of
you
lecturing
me
on how people hate the King! You think I don't know that? Listen to me, kid, and I'll give you the full story of what King Kev has done to me personally! I was the head of Redstone Experiments back in the old kingdom. It was me who designed Element City's monorail system, me who wired King Kev's entire castle, and me who designed all the weapon systems that guard the King's castle from invaders like you. For the love of God, I invented the TNT Cannon for him!

“And how does the King repay me? He banishes me to
spend my life in this desert wasteland, just because people who hated him copied my weapons systems and used them against him! If there is anybody who wants the King dead, it's people like me, like the Apothecary, like the Chiefs of Exploration, who were close to the King, and who he banished from his kingdom!”

“And that doesn't make you want to want to try to take control of Elementia from him?” asked Stan, his eyes flashing with passionate rage at the King and at the old inventor across from him who was being so difficult. “For the record, the Apothecary and the Chiefs of Exploration have both agreed to join my army.”

“Then they're bigger fools than you!” said the Mechanist with a joyless shout of laughter. “They ought to know that nothing good comes from rebelling against the King's supreme authority. If you were wise, you'd do the same thing as me and try to make the best you can out of the world that the King has created. Me, I love making redstone mechanisms, and so I put my skills to use here by making piston machines to make deep-earth mining easier.

“I hate the fact that I'm helping the King by making mining easier for him, and so I don't feel guilty when I get SloPo from gambling with the nomads that pass through here.” He raised his bottle of blue-gray liquid. “I've made myself a life out here. Thanks to the King, it's not happy or
fulfilling, but I can't change it, so why not make it as nice for myself as possible?”

And with that, the Mechanist took another swig of SloPo. The effect was instantaneous, and his head fell back and rolled to the side as he passed out.

Stan was filled with a new level of infuriation at both the King and the Mechanist. He could never forgive the Mechanist for just giving up on life after it got hard and not even trying to fight back. On the other hand, his new knowledge of the kinds of mistreatment that the King had extended to even his friends, who had trusted and served him, imparted in Stan a furious desire to do something drastic against the King. He looked down at the mayor, who had been sitting in his chair, trying to block out the noise throughout the whole argument.

“Mayor, I need you to gather all the miners in the village in front of the warehouse. I have an announcement to make,” said Stan.

The mayor stood up and looked Stan in the eye. “If I do what you say, will I regret it?”

“I sure hope not,” replied Stan as he walked out the door.

He had noticed that there was a wooden platform in front of the brick wall of the warehouse, which was illuminated by torchlight. It was a perfect podium for the message he was going to try to get across to the desperate coal miners. By the time the sky was pink and the sun was about to disappear
under the desert skyline behind the warehouse, all of the nearly twenty-three coal miners had congregated around the wooden platform. When they were all settled down, Stan stood up and began to speak.

“People of Blackstone! My name is Stan2012. Many of you may have heard rumors that an assassin has tried to murder Elementia's dictator, King Kev, during his last proclamation to the public. I am here to tell you that that assassin was none other than myself.”

There were a few surprised intakes of breath from the crowd, and Stan saw a few miners move their hands and firmly grab their pickaxes, unsure of what was going to happen next.

“Since that incident, I have been on the run. Many have asked me what my motivation was for trying to kill one of the most powerful men on the server.” That part was a lie, but Stan thought it sounded impressive, and it was a good line to segue into the next part of his speech. “I am here to tell you that I tried to kill the King because he is an evil tyrant who needs to be brought down!”

A few miners looked around, half-prepared to see the King's forces ready to attack them for treason, but most of the miners were staring intently at Stan, nodding with respect on their faces.

“I am currently raising an army against King Kev and I
am going to lead this army to victory by taking control of the King's castle in Element City! I intend to kill the King, along with any high officers who refuse to surrender. The days of the present terrorist regime are numbered, and the King's Elementia will fall. It will be replaced by an Elementia where all men are given equal opportunities, and slavery, which is so commonplace in the kingdom now, including right here in Blackstone, is nonexistent.

“Many of you are probably wondering how I have the courage to speak against the King, when the possibility is high that I may be turned over to the authorities. And the reason for that is: I do not fear the King! I accept that the King is a powerful enemy, and he has resources that will make it easier said than done to bring him to justice. However—and this is the reason that I am willing to speak so freely—I believe that we have resources, too. I say
we
because I am positive that there are more of you in this village who hate the King than are sympathetic to him. If we all band together, we have a realistic chance to take the King down!

“I am going to walk over to the train station now, and all those who would like to join my army and take down the King with me should follow. Anybody who remains I will fight and kill in order to prevent them from giving information of my plan to the King. However, I also expect anybody willing to join me to help me fight against those who are unwilling.
This is your test, people of Blackstone. You may join me and fight those who do not join, or you may not join me and fight those who do. Those who wish to join me have sixty seconds to walk over to the station, starting now.”

And with that, Stan jumped off the platform and ran through the crowd of people, who stepped to the side to let him through. He was vaguely reminded of the crowd on the day he shot at the King. He stood at the threshold of the train station and turned around.

Five seconds ticked by, and nobody moved. Stan wasn't surprised. He hadn't expected anybody to make up their mind right away. Then ten seconds ticked away, then fifteen, then twenty. When thirty seconds had passed and nobody had joined Stan, he drew his axe. He had promised to fight anybody who didn't join him, and it looked like he was going to be in for the fight of his life. At forty seconds Stan was starting to panic, when there was a shuffling in the crowd.

One single miner, who looked similar to Stan although blackened with coal dust and wearing an iron helmet and holding a stone pickaxe, walked across the empty expanse toward Stan. Another followed, and then the entire mass of miners seemed to come over and join Stan's side.