Virtual Prophet (13 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Danielle - 70

I step out of the doorway and onto a hardpacked, well-travelled dirt road with woods on either side. The old man appears out of the light beside me and the sound of hissing disappears, signaling that the doorway is gone.

I look around slowly; the woods are thicker than I remember them being but that’s not a surprise. I’ve been gone from this place for seven years.

I look down the road to my right, and off in the distance I see the front gate of the Colony. When I left there were over forty thousand people living there. I wonder how much it has grown. From here, everything appears normal; the wall is intact, and there are people standing guard on top. I begin to walk towards home.

“Danni,” the old man says from behind me. “Before we get any closer, I think there are a few things you should know.”

I feel a tightening in my stomach. The old man rarely tells me anything, and when he does it’s usually bad news. I turn to look at him, and his face confirms that I’m not going to like what I hear.  “What is it?” I ask.

“Things have changed here,” he says.  “Since you’ve been gone.”

“I would imagine they have,” I say. “Give me the highlights.”

His expression becomes pinched and uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t exactly call them highlights...” he says.

“Quit being cryptic,” I snap. “Tell me what you have to say.”

“It’s very difficult to run and maintain a colony of this size, especially when you were the big draw... and you were no longer present.”

“That makes sense,” I agree.

“A couple of years after you left, things started to become... strained.”

I look at him, waiting for him to finish telling me what he has to say.

He sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, then, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come right to the point.”

“I’ll be surprised if you can do that.”

He looks at me and nods. “Yeah, I deserved that. The Colony has a new leader, and not one that is very friendly towards you.”

“Who is it?” I snap impatiently.

I hear rustling in the brush and turn to see Raphael appear. From his gear and appearance it looks like he’s been out in the wilderness for more than a few days. He also looks like he’s stepped out of a scene from a fantasy book. He’s wearing a chain mail shirt with its hood hanging against his back. His arms have plates of steel strapped on to provide forearm protection, and his boots and leggings finish the outfit, making him look like some
Elven ranger from The Lord of the Rings. Behind his right shoulder I can see the ornate hilt of his favourite long blade poking up from its sheath.

His eyes are grim as he approaches. He stops in front of me and I can see a mixture of relief and curiosity in his eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, I can tell he’s going to scold me or yell at me, but then he shakes his head and pulls me close to hug me.

Suddenly I feel as if I’m a little girl again being pulled out of the way of danger into his strong protective arms. I begin to weep, letting out all the tension and stress of years on the road. He stokes my head and rocks me gently as I sob and hug him tight.

After a few moments I feel much better. He loosens his grip to hold me at arms’ length and examines me with his gaze. I can see tears in his eyes as well.

“You don’t look a day older than when you left,” he says.

“That’s kind of you.” I wipe my eyes with my sleeve. “I know for a fact I look at least a week or two older than that.”

He chuckles and relaxes his grip. “Come on, let’s get off the road. It’s not safe to be standing here.”

He starts to walk back towards the forest. I look around for the old man, but as is so often the case, he has quietly disappeared.

“Why isn’t it safe?” I ask. “What’s going on, Raph? Who’s in charge of the Colony?”

He looks over his shoulder as he continues to walk. “Stephanie,” he says. “While you were gone, the Devil came in and took over.”

===

“What the hell is he talking about?” Michelle looked at Trew.

“Stephanie must have become an Infernal,” Trew said, “and somehow she’s aiding Daniel. Looks like she’s high in the organization, if she’s working directly against Danni.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Nadine said. “How can one of her closest protectors for decades suddenly become an enemy?”

Trew looked at the others around the table. “Timeless are a real wild card in the Game,” he said. “I’ve learned a bit about them, and the truth of the matter is that they follow their allegiance above all else. When their eyes turn colour, they have no choice but to follow that path.”

The room considered the implications of having Stephanie as an enemy working for the Devil.

“What about that fight she was in? With Shane?”

Trew shook his head. “Forget Shane for the moment. We have no idea where she was or even where to begin looking for him. Let’s focus on the Colony first.”

People nodded and began to type commands into their tablets.

Trew stood up. “Find out whatever you can,” he said. “Start scanning all the feeds to view people who are in the Colony. Many of them were likely low ranked players before the Day. It’s going to be crazy for the first few hours here. It will take some time for the computer to update all the rankings as information floods in. Once we get knowledge of the newest rankings, start viewing channels with players inside the Colony. I want to know what Stephanie is up to. I also want to know where the Devil is right now. Find me Daniel.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Danielle - 70

We hike a few kilometres into the woods until we come to an opening. Raphael stops and turns to look at me.

“We fly from here,” he says.

I sigh. “It’s been so long since I’ve flown, I wonder if I’ll still be able to.”

He frowns at me. “Why haven’t you flown?”

I shake my head. “Long story short, the old man wouldn’t allow it. It was the only way we could find...” I clamp my mouth shut. I don’t think I’m supposed to tell anyone about meeting with Shane. Something tells me bad things will happen if I break my vow and tell others that the power is back on. Not that it should make a difference; it won’t take long for someone to discover the truth of the matter. I will honour my word, which means telling no one about the finale to my long trip abroad. “He just wouldn’t let me fly,” I say.

“It’s like riding a bike,” he assures me. “I’ll go slow at first. When you’re comfortable, give me a sign by passing me in the air and I’ll speed things up a bit.”

“Okay,” I say.

He nods and jumps into the air, hovering ten feet above the ground.

I close my eyes and summon the glow. It’s still there, as strong as ever, and I feel its warm embrace as I jump into the air and drift up to float beside him.

“Excellent,” he says. “Now follow me.”

I bask in the sensations that come with flying; the cold wind in my face, contrasted by the warm sun, and the crisp feeling of the air as it rushes over my nostrils and around my eyes; I’d forgotten how incredible this feeling is! I swear we were made to fly through the skies; I wish everyone could do it. Correction — everyone ca
n.
I wish they would.

It only takes a few moments for me to feel comfortable enough to increase my speed. I fly past Raphael and he laughs and nods, increasing the pace so that we can travel more quickly. I follow him and soon guess where he’s taking us. What used to be a 40-minute drive from the Colony, there is a large stone bluff called Rattlesnake Point. It looks like he’s heading for that.

We reach the bluffs about fifteen minutes later and land at the top of the escarpment. Raph sits down and swings his legs over the edge, and I quickly join him, glancing down at the jagged rocks over a hundred feet below.

“I’ve always loved this place,” I say.

Raphael nods. “Rattlesnake Point. Over ten kilometres of cliffs surrounded by woods and nature on all sides. We’ve begun to spot the odd rattlesnake, and they were gone from the area for decades.”

I begin to say something and he nods his head. “I know the point wasn’t named for them — it was called Rattlesnake Point because it looks like a snake from the air. Still, it’s interesting to see nature return to the old ways since the Day.”

I nod in agreement. “You said ‘we’ a moment ago. How many are here? Can you tell me what happened?”

“We tempted fate and tried to do something that we all knew was risky,” Raphael said. He looked out at the sun as it was setting on the horizon. “We made a deal with the Devil, and eventually the Devil had to renege on that deal.”

“You never did tell me how you helped her overthrow Daniel,” I say, “or how you managed to turn Stephanie in the first place.”

“We didn’t know that it would be Stephanie,” Raphael admits. “We guessed that one of us would turn eventually, and we made a binding agreement between all of us that when the time came, whoever turned would take a shot at eliminating Daniel. When it ended up being Steph... well, she had the best chance of surprising him. We knew our odds were excellent when we saw that her eyes had changed.”

“How were you so certain someone would become an Infernal?”

“We know the Game. In Africa there is a frog that sometimes suffers from a disease that kills only males. Sometimes it is so deadly that it can leave a population with no males at all, leaving the entire group without any hope of procreating,” Raphael says.

“Sounds nasty,” I say.

“The nasty thing is what nature does to correct the situation,” he says. “Some of the females spontaneously become male, allowing the frogs to mate and the species to continue to exist.”

“Is that true?” I can’t believe such a thing could happen.

“Absolutely,” he assures me. “It’s the same with everything in this world. Nature, or the mainframe, or whatever you want to call it, can perform miracles to restore balance to the world. We knew that we were upsetting the balance. So many Eternals in a concentrated area couldn’t go unnoticed by the system forever. We knew that eventually one or more of us would experience the change, so we made a bold plan to take advantage of the situation when it occurred.”

“Daniel’s dead?” I ask. “Gone forever, because he no longer has a body to return to on Tygon?”

Raphael pauses and his expression tells me something different from the words that come out of his mouth. “Yes,” he says. “Daniel is gone.”

“You don’t sound so sure,” I say.

He opens his mouth to say something, but shakes his head instead. “He’s gone,” he assures me.

“What did you want Stephanie to do?” I ask. “If she succeeded in becoming the Devil?”

Raphael looks thankful for the change in subject. “We wanted to bring Shane’s released people together. Many of us felt this would enable us to figure out how to turn things back on. If Shane gathered and used these individuals to cause the problem, we guessed they could help us to reverse it. We gathered over half of them, and the Infernals had managed to acquire the other half.”

“So you wanted Stephanie to take over and bring you the numbered people that the Infernals had in their clutches,” I guess.

“Yes,” he says. “We wanted her to do that, and one other thing.”

“Which was?” I ask.

“Leave you and the Colony alone,” Raphael answered. “We knew the Colony was a big target for Daniel, and we’d put him off repeatedly by convincing him that too many would die if he tried to take over. We also knew that eventually he would tire of our stall tactics and attack us like a rabid dog. Putting one of us in the Infernal leadership spot would help increase the chances that you would be left alone.”

“Looks like that plan backfired,” I say.

“They both backfired,” he says. “She stalled when it came to turning over the numbered people. I convinced her to give me two of them, but then she dragged her heels and even tried to give us an imposter who’d been trained to lie very convincingly. When we figured out this new person hadn’t been one of the original numbered, we knew things were going to get messy. We planned a raid and stole the remaining numbered individuals out from under her nose.”

“She retaliated by invading the Colony?” I guess.

“Yes,” he answers. “She took her time and built a network inside the Colony. Three years after you had gone, the population of the Colony was well over a hundred thousand. It was impossible for us to detect every traitor or agent in a community of that size. Two years ago, a new mayor and governing body were elected. Turns out, Stephanie had slowly and cleverly recruited and aided them. When they took power, one of the first things they did was convince the regular population that Eternals had been taking advantage of everyone for years; sitting around doing nothing while the rest of the Colony worked to provide us with our lifestyle.”

“Oh, no,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “In no time they were asking us to leave, and then when we refused, they began to threaten us. Rather than start a physical confrontation, which they were all too eager to do, we decided to go.”

“They wouldn’t let you take the numbered group, though?”

“That’s right. The thirteen stayed in the colony.”

“Now you live here.”

“Yes. The old man came to us and assured us that you would return in a few years. We decided to stay close enough to keep an eye on the colony and see if they would rise up against Stephanie and her minions. Most of the followers are allowed to live normal lives; Stephanie caused very few ripples when she took over. She even lets them retain their faith and following as Gamers.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” I say. “There’s no way I’m gonna allow my people to live with Infernals running the place. I’ll give everything that’s in me to kick Stephanie’s scrawny ass out of the colony and leave my people alone.”

Raphael smiles. “I was hoping you would say that,” he says. “Let’s go meet the others and see if we can’t mount an effective eviction operation.”