Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  Michaelson slowly pulled on his leather breeches, then slipped into the blood-crusted jerkin and laced it up to his chest, touching each knife in its sheath as he did so.

  “When you confront Ma’elKoth, you will do so outside the Colhari Palace. The Studio has invested far too much in this Adventure to have its climax occur offstage. At this confrontation, you will remove him from power or die in the attempt. If either of these conditions are violated, on your return you will face downcasteing for slander and corporate espionage.”

  Kollberg smiled broadly, showing his teeth. “Your silly little cease-and-desist order contains information that the Dole Family could have gotten only through you; it’s prima facie evidence of corporate espionage. I own you, do you understand? I can break you any time I want.”

  Michaelson pulled on his low boots of soft black leather without response.

  “I said, do you understand?”

  “I understand.” Michaelson’s voice was low and flat, almost a growl; this certainly wasn’t the tone of submission that Kollberg looked for, the tone he demanded.

  “Don’t think that Shermaya Dole can protect you, not from the Studio; she can’t,” Kollberg said. “Don’t expect her to even try.”

  “I don’t.”

  Now, for the first time, Michaelson turned away from the mirror and met Kollberg’s eyes face-to-face, and a cold shiver started in the Administrator’s belly.

  Michaelson said, “Who do you think is going to protect you?”

  Kollberg’s eyes bulged. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?” he spluttered.

  “Yeah. Now listen to these words: there is nothing you can do to save your life.”

  “What?” This was incredible; this was intolerable! Had Michaelson forgotten to whom he was speaking?

  But as Kollberg looked into Michaelson’s expressionless black eyes, he realized he was no longer talking to Hari Michaelson.

  This was Caine.

  “You crossed a line,” Caine said. “You crossed my line, and I’ll see you dead for it. No one uses Shanna like this and lives. Even if I win: if I survive, if I bring Shanna back, if I kill Berne and Ma’elKoth and god knows who else, come back to Earth with no harm done to live happily ever after; even then, there is no happy ending for you. Enjoy these last days of your life, Kollberg. You don’t have many left.”

  Kollberg could only stare, his mouth opening and closing with the moist silence of the last gasps of a beached fish.

  Caine stretched one last time, and his joints popped like faroff gunfire. He cracked the knuckles of both hands, one by one. “There’s about fifteen billion marks’ worth of audience out there waiting for me right now,” he said. “You’d better get out of my way.”

  3

  HAIR THAT GLEAMS like metal under the floodlights, lips wet with something like lust:

  “Welcome back to Adventure Update. I’m Bronson Underwood. Our top story this morning is once again the Adventure of the Decade. Bloody but unbowed, Caine returns to Ankhana in very few minutes from now, for a final desperate attempt to save his wife from the horrors of amplitude decay. As you can see from the Pallas Ril Lifeclock graphic in the corner of your screen, we estimate that she has less than thirty-six hours remaining. However, due to chaotic uncertainty in phase locking, amplitude decay could theoretically begin within the day. Whatever the true limit is, time is very short indeed.

  “Pallas Ril’s predicament, and Caine’s heroic attempts at a rescue, have captured imaginations worldwide, and the Studio has not been slow to capitalize. Here with that side of the story, live from Studio Center in San Francisco, is our chief correspondent, Jed Clearlake.”

  “Good morning, Bronson.”

  “Good morning, Jed. This is quite an event, isn’t it?”

  “Bronson, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been covering Ankhanan operations for Adventure Update for a few years now, and I guess you’ve realized that this is the biggest thing to ever come out of San Francisco. The numbers released by the Studio this morning are nothing short of staggering. The previous record for first-handers on-line for a single Adventure—which, as you know, was set only four days ago at the outset of For Love of Pallas Ril—has been shattered more than tenfold this morning. Public demand for access to Caine has led the Studio system worldwide to cancel the majority of their other ongoing Adventures, preempting them to provide firsthand seats for this one. As Caine prepares to make his transfer this morning, official counts have his firsthand audience at one point six million. Assuming, as we do, that these are nearly all Leisurefolk and Investors, you should understand that more than seventy percent of Caine’s potential audience will be on-line. More than one billion people have already placed advance orders for the secondhand cubes. This is more than the Adventure of the Decade, Bronson. This is the story of the century.”

  “Impressive numbers, Jed, impressive indeed. Does the Studio plan to share any more live feed with us, over the course of this extraordinary event?”

  “I’ve been in contact with Studio Chairman Arturo Kollberg’s office, and all they’re saying is that we should hold ourselves ready. So I’m guessing all signs are good, Bronson.”

  “Thank you, Jed. We’ll be back with you in a moment. Now we go to Chicago, where Jessica Roan has caught up with Pallas Ril’s parents, Alan and Mara Leighton, as they enter the Chicago Studio to firsthand this incredible Adventure. Jessica?”

  “Good morning, Bronson . . .”

  And the whole world waits, and squirms, and drools like a glutton smelling a feast.

  4

  THE STUDIO’S PERSONNEL tracking system located Kollberg as soon as he left the ON vault, and the nearest wallscreen flashed at him and loudly announced, “Administrator Kollberg! Urgent message from Professional Mona Carson!”

  Professional Carson was the San Francisco head of Studio Legal; this could only mean a serious problem. Kollberg muttered a curse and wiped his sweaty palms on his smock before he responded.

  “Go.”

  The screen lit with Carson’s bird-boned face, her delicate brows drawn together in a worried frown.

  “Administrator, Caine’s and Pallas Ril’s Patrons are both up in the Cavea’s techbooth right now—and they’ve brought the Social Police. Please confirm receipt of this message, and then meet me there ASAP.”

  Kollberg felt like he’d been sandbagged; he was about two rungs on the caste ladder too low not to go weak in the knees on hearing that soapies were waiting for him. For a moment, the hallway seemed to spin around him, and he was afraid he might faint.

  The dizziness passed, and he fumbled in the pockets of his smock for the carton of speed, shaking out another capsule and dry-swallowing it painfully before sending the Worker secmen back to their racks. It wouldn’t do to arrive with secmen in tow; it’d make him look suspiciously frightened.

  He glanced at the wallscreen and ordered his private lift, then strode toward it as forcefully as he could manage, as though by pretending confidence, he could generate some.

  Carson was waiting for him at the techbooth door when he came puffing up.

  “There’s nothing I can do about it, Administrator. They hit us with a surprise injunction, and the Social Police have a proper warrant: our public-trust exceptions are unbreakable, but they’ve dodged around them. I have Legal on their way to court already for a temporary restraining order, but they’re ready for us, and they’ll make us argue it out. It’ll take hours to get them out of here, at best.”

  “This is about that damned cease-and-desist, isn’t it?”

  Carson nodded. “They’ve brought the soapies to enforce compliance.”

  Kollberg smacked a soft fist against his palm, and hairs began to stand up along his arms: he was getting a surge from the amphetamine already.

  “Damn them. All right, I’ll take over here. You keep working on it.”

  “I will, but I’m up against Dole Family lawyers . . .”

  She didn’t need to
say any more; Kollberg understood perfectly. “We’ll make the best of it, Mona. Don’t give up.”

  She nodded, then left with a promise to keep up the fight. Kollberg took a moment to inhale deeply several times and smooth his smock before he opened the techbooth door and stepped inside.

  Shermaya Dole sat in his chair at the stage manager’s station, holding court among the dazzled techs like a queen. They’d never been this close to Leisurefolk before, and they were stammering and falling over each other, blushingly obsequious.

  Standing at her side like a prince consort was Marc Vilo, and behind them stood a pair of soapies in their sky blue jumpsuits and their silver-masked helmets.

  Kollberg pasted a smile across his meaty lips and said, “Leisurema’am Dole, Businessman Vilo, it’s an unexpected honor to find you in my techbooth.”

  Vilo snorted, openly contemptuous, and Dole said, “Marc, please. Be gracious.” She sat a little straighter in his chair and spoke regally.

  “Administrator. I’m sorry that we must meet again under these . . . adversarial circumstances. I hope that you understand that none of this—” She waved a finger at the soapies behind her. “—is directed at you personally. They are only here because of some disturbing reports that are becoming common knowledge on the nets, and I feel that I must take steps to protect the interests of the Dole Family and our undercastes.”

  “Common knowledge on the nets?” Kollberg said with a pretense of polite surprise. The upcaste bitch was trying to slip Michaelson off the hook, and there really wasn’t much he could do about it, here and now.

  “Oh, yes. And while I understand that the Studio’s records and contracts are sealed, any observations made by social enforcement officers will be legally admissible as evidence.”

  “You seem very well informed on Business law,” Kollberg murmured.

  She shrugged coquettishly, a gesture Kollberg found gruesome in a beefy woman nearing middle age. “I have my little hobbies,” she said. “One must keep busy, you know. Now, I believe we must be on our way. Marc is squiring me once again in his private box, and Caine will be mounting the transfer platform at any moment. Thank you for your time, Administrator, and I do apologize for the inconvenience. Come, Marc,” she said, rising, and they left without another word.

  Kollberg eyed the soapies; they hadn’t moved, and he felt a little queasy about sitting in the stage manager’s chair with these blank silver faces peering over his shoulders.

  He turned to one of the wide-eyed techs. “Two chairs for the Social Police. Now.”

  The tech scurried off.

  “We’ll stand,” one of the soapies said. They stood close enough together that he couldn’t tell from which one the digitized voice had come. “When we feel the need to sit, we’ll sit. Now get on with it.”

  Kollberg coughed into his fist and settled tensely into the chair, painfully aware of hidden eyes behind him.

  “All right,” he said tightly. “Fine. Signal the greenroom and tell Caine he’s on in five.”

  5

  THE CLOSET THAT materializes around me is barely larger than a coffin, and it leans at a crazy angle: it’s set into a wall that’s in the midst of a monthlong slow-sagging process of falling over. A little grey cloud-light leaks in from a rent above my head, and the closet reeks of moldy plaster and wet charcoal.

  I put my shoulder against the moist and swollen wood of the door opposite the hinge side; it squeals briefly, muffled like a piglet in a burlap sack, then sticks fast.

  All right. Screw being sneaky.

  I brace my back along the angle of the wall behind me and kick the door sharply in the middle. The sodden, rotting wood tears more than it breaks, separating with a shriek of rusty nails, and I step out into the ruins of the same Industrial Park warehouse from which I’d been recalled.

  Roof tiles litter the puddled floor around me, and shreds of the ceiling drape like the long arms of a dying willow. The thick fractal curves of steel-grey clouds press low above me, and the remains of recent rain still drip through the holes in the roof. In with the rain comes the clop of iron-shod hooves on paved streets outside, and the occasional shout or snarled exchange of curses from passersby.

  I lift my arms and turn my face up into the pale light; I breathe in Ankhana and breathe it out again, waiting for that swift rush of freedom that Adventuring always brings.

  It won’t come.

  All I feel is weight, dragging at me, pressing on my shoulders as though those clouds above are stones that I carry on my back, and a nagging, gnawing awareness of the tick of each passing second.

  That freedom, it’s gone, and I’m starting to suspect it’ll never return. They’ve stripped it from me . . .

  My father would say: freedom that can be taken away was never real in the first place, and maybe he’s right. Maybe that freedom was always only a figment of my imagination—but it was an illusion I cherished.

  Shattering an illusion is the insult we never forgive.

  I shake my head and set off, picking my way through the debris, threading deeper into the ruins. I’ll pick up the trail at the place where I lost it; though she told me she would be gone by now, there is no better place for me to begin my search.

  The little sheltered office area is empty save for the dead coals of Tommie’s campfire, and the basement door stands open. I glance down the steps—most of the water seems to have drained off. I should maybe go down for a last look around.

  But the creaks and groans of the settling warehouse become just a little too insistent.

  I’m not alone, here.

  I fade silently against the wall, alongside the only door. Busting that closet door must have made enough noise to draw watchers in to investigate; these are no innocent explorers. No honest man moves with this much care for silence.

  A hoarse voice barely whispers from the other side of this wet-dough wall of plaster at my back.

  “Caine? Baron, is that you in there? It’s Tommie.”

  They’ve got me boxed. “Yeah, Tommie, it’s me. What’s up?”

  He steps into the doorway, relief painted across his cheerfully ugly face.

  “Was hoping it was you, Baron. Figured it was—figured you was the only guy could get in here, past the dozen Subjects we got watching this place.”

  I take the undeserved compliment with a shrug. “Watching for what? Where is everybody?”

  He shakes his head, and his face darkens.

  “It’s bad, Caine. Pallas is shot and taken by the Cats, and that fighting girl with her, that Talann? She’s dead.”

  He sees something in my face that makes him spread his hands apologetically. “Berne emptied her guts all over Knights’ Bridge.”

  Ahh . . .

  God, I’m old.

  That’s all I can think for long seconds, all I can feel, every god damned day of my life piled onto my back.

  You have to be young to take shit like this. You have to still be young and adaptable, and full of optimism. You have to still believe in happy endings, to believe that suffering has a point, that death is not a meaningless extinguishing of consciousness.

  You have to be young enough to still hope that shit happens for a reason.

  So maybe they get their wish, all those executives who put me here. Maybe there’s nothing left for me but revenge.

  The weight of days presses me down like I’m slowly being flattened under God’s own millstone. I slide down the wall to sit on the floor; I search within the sick emptiness in my guts, looking for my anger.

  If I can recover the rage that has always lived there, it’ll put enough strength back into my legs that I can get up and walk again. But I find only ashes.

  Tommie says, “And the King wants to talk to you. We been waiting here since yesterday. Tell you, I din’t think you’d come back here, but Lamorak said y’would. He was pretty sure, I guess, and here you are.”

  Lamorak . . .

  Still here, of course, still under the protection
of the King of Cant . . .

  Ahh, there it is, a spark kindling among this bitter ash, starting to trail smoke down there around my heart.

  When I look up at Tommie, there are more Knights behind him—a lot of them. Naked blades gleam dully from their fists. My lips press through a thin smile. “Thanks, Tommie.”

  He frowns, puzzled. “For—?”

  “For giving me a reason to get up.”

  I suit action to the words, and he steps back, taking a short coil of rope from one of the other Knights.

  “Why so many of you? Majesty think I’d fight?”

  Tommie twists the rope between his hands. “Aw, nah. ’S to keep each other honest, y’know? The King ain’t the only one wants to talk to you. The Eyes bumped your bounty a bunch and all. With us all together like this nobody can turn you in and collect.”

  “Did they? I hadn’t heard.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thousand royals . . .”

  His gaze and voice go off to some distant place, some fantastic realm where they belong to a man a thousand royals richer; then he comes back to himself with an apologetic cough. “I’m, ah . . .” He clears his throat. “I’m supposed to bind your hands.”

  I show him my teeth. “You’ll die trying.”

  “Baron, c’mon, it’s nothing personal . . .”

  “I’ll explain it to Majesty. He’ll understand.”

  “Won’t try to escape, will you? Hate to have to cut you.”

  “Escape?” I snort a cold laugh. “You’re taking me right where I want to go.”

  6

  ARTURO KOLLBERG BROODED in his seat, the faceless soapies still staring over his shoulders. He barely watched Caine’s progress. He rose out of his chilly self-contemplation only when Tommie led Caine into view of the tumbled wreckage that had been Knights’ Bridge and the soldiers who still picked over the shattered dockside, searching for survivors.

  “Pallas did this?” Caine half whispered in awe. “Shit a brick . . . Where did she get this kind of power?”

  “Barge got right away,” Tommie told him.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  To judge from its aftermath, the battle had obviously been spectacular, extraordinary—and Kollberg hadn’t had an on-line Actor there, not one. No one had it on cube.