by Mark C. Wade
Nyissa shifted into the shadows before the boss even appeared. She slinked along the wall during its entry animation, and then as it looked around, she poised herself for an attack. She threw one of the poison daggers.
The boss raged in the direction of the attack, and Nyissa was already on the other side of it for a demonblade backstab.
Lukas yelled, “I can’t believe she’s going to cheese a boss she’s never seen before!”
Henry had no idea what “cheese” meant in this case, but he was impressed that she could get by without knowing its attacks.
The question remained if it would be fast enough. Her attacks did less damage, and she was a few hits behind already.
The crowd burst into whoops and gasps. Henry’s glance flicked over to Aeden’s screen just in time to see him misjudge an attack. The ice scythe clipped him, and he flew back, temporarily frozen.
The boss didn’t let up and swung a large uppercut with the chaos magic scythe. Aeden’s body flopped liked a ragdoll as it flew into the air and then into the far stone wall.
He slid down, now at about quarter health.
The attack flung Aeden far enough away that it gave him time to get back to his feet, and he immediately went back into the fight. There was no time to heal or hesitate. Aeden knew Nyissa would be giving it her all.
He looked shaky and nervous. Henry feared Aeden would make another mistake, and he didn’t want to look away.
But then the crowd erupted again, and he looked over to Nyissa. She had taken off a significant portion of the boss’s health and now hid in the corner with her arms to the sky.
A dark red aura rose up from the ground.
It turned to violent flames.
Lukas shouted, “Her ultimate ability! Hellfire!”
It was a good name for it, because fiery bolts of lightning, flaming meteors, and a vortex of blazing inferno descended on the boss.
It surprised Henry to see the boss hold its scythes up to shield itself from the wrath of hell. The boss had made no attempt at defensive maneuvers during Aeden’s fight.
Geulimja did little to stop it, and the constant onslaught pummeled his body repeatedly.
Nyissa didn’t let up. The boss had so little health, and she dove in with a flurry of demonblade attacks until the boss stumbled back and fell to the ground.
At the same time, Aeden jumped in for his final blow, and the boss phased out of the way.
Aeden’s sword hit nothing but air, and the boss’s counterattack skewered Aeden. Aeden fell to the floor and vanished with a pixelated animation as Nyissa’s version of the boss died.
She stepped to the hanging central spike, and her body rose up to be granted the next ascension level.
People stood and cheered and booed. There was still the sense she had stolen this victory. Until Zane’s murder was solved, she would continue to look like the one who had done it in the public’s eye.
The two contestants emerged from their pods. Aeden put his head in his hands. He’d still get a lot of money for second place, but he felt the pain of losing for now.
Nyissa raised her arms up in victory but sensed the crowd’s hostility and quickly moved up to the front stage.
The announcer brought out one of those ridiculously large checks with a million dollars written on it. Nyissa looked exhausted as she took it. She barely had the strength to hold it.
The announcer tried to start an interview with her, but the noise of the crowd was deafening. Overtones of anger and resentment flowed from the masses.
Henry became afraid. He sensed the beginnings of a riot, and he wasn’t sure if the announcer would know to get Nyissa off the stage as quickly as possible.
Luckily, the signs were obvious enough, and he gave up on the interview.
Nyissa swiftly left the stage and went into the back area.
Henry was thankful for the increased security in case things got out of hand. Hard jostling and minor fighting had started to break out in little pockets of the crowd.
This could get really bad and fast.
Henry rushed through the front row of people and down to congratulate Nyissa in her dressing room.
He knocked this time, and her voice came out strained. “Who is it?”
“Henry!”
“You can come in.”
Henry opened the door and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. They hate me, and I’m just tired from competing. Looks like you’re going to get your money.”
Henry nodded.
Nyissa shifted through her pack. A panicked look entered her eyes. She started pulling things out and throwing them to the ground. When she got to nothing left, she gave Henry a cold stare.
She said, “We need to contact the police. Someone’s been in here. They stole something.”
Henry calmly said, “I don’t think the police are going to help.”
“Shit. Oh, God. I need those. You have no idea what you’ve done. They’ll come for you.”
Nyissa’s eyes went wide, and she collapsed to the floor with a sickening thud.
Henry crouched down to help, but she was already unconscious.
Chapter 27
Henry had zoned out to the gentle, rhythmic beeps of the heart monitor and deep breathing of sleep. The sheets rustled, and Henry returned his attention to Nyissa.
She’d been the strongest person he knew since this whole ordeal started. She kept her head through the accusations and investigations and managed to come through the other side of the tournament a champion.
Now, here she lay, in a hospital bed, and it depressed Henry that this type of thing happened all the time.
Nyissa struggled to sit up, and as she pressed her elbows back into the bed for leverage, she noticed the IV going into her arm. A gentle gasp escaped her lips.
Henry didn’t know how she had planned on celebrating her victory, but he was certain this was not it.
Her eyes still had that faraway grogginess to them. Henry didn’t know what types of drugs they had put her on, and so the effect could have been a chemical one.
She said, “You’re alive? What happened?”
Henry said, “I think you mean: you’re alive. You passed out after the match.”
“No. I meant what I said. Now that you know what’s going on, they’ll kill you.”
Henry laughed. “Actually, I don’t know what’s going on. Tell me. I can help you if you’re in trouble.”
Nyissa looked down and then said, “If you haven’t figured it out by now, then maybe you weren’t the right person to hire.”
“Well, you, and probably Aeden…and I guess probably Zane were all on some cognitive enhancement drug. The doctors said you passed out from a combination of exhaustion and withdrawal. They’ve got you on the anti-withdrawal medication. So, you don’t have to worry about those side effects.
“At this point, I have two guesses. One is that all the top players dope, and it’s against the rules. So, Zane was probably going to whistleblow and get you all busted. One of the top players offed him in a way that looked like an accident. Clever. Now you’re all safe. I’m guessing you know who did it, and that’s why you hired me. You led me to Aeden for other reasons, hoping I’d figure out the truth.
“You couldn’t outright tell me, because if you knew he did it without informing the authorities and benefitted from it, you’d be an accomplice and go down, too. Am I close?”
Nyissa had the biggest smile, and then she started laughing hysterically. The laughs turned to dry coughs, so she stopped.
Henry blamed the meds.
She said, “Oh, God. You’re an idiot. I keep trying to tell you. This is so much bigger than me or Aeden or the top players. Do you really think Aeden would figure out a way to tamper with the VR gear? He’s a good gamer, but he’s a moron in real life.”
“So, the Restin Corporation did it? But why?”
“I can’t tell you that. You’re not my lawyer, so you’re not protected by the attor
ney-client privilege. But I’m a good person, and I want this to stop finally. Think about this before you say anything. I’ll tell you the truth so you can take down the operation, but you can’t tell anyone how you got the information.
“This means especially not your police chief boyfriend. You go and do this by yourself as if you figured it out on your own because if I go down, my win gets stripped, and I get no money. That means you get no money, and I know how badly you need it.”
Oh, God. A million dollars sounds good.
It wasn’t that Henry was corrupt, he just figured the end result would be the same if she went into the court system and did a plea deal: she’d get off free in exchange for this information.
But Henry had a feeling he’d need help. If this was as big as she implied, how was he going to do it all by himself?
Nyissa laughed again and punched Henry’s arm.
She said, “You’re hesitating. I didn’t expect that. You’ve changed since we first met. The old Henry would have gladly taken the money and then plunged into the case by himself.”
Henry replied, “You might not know me as well as you think.”
She smirked.
Henry turned to leave. He’d gotten something from her, and when the forensic analysis of the drug came back, he might be able to figure out some more.
Henry said, “Let me think about it.”
He was halfway out the door when Nyissa stopped him. “Someone else will die if you take too long.”
Henry glared back. “Is that a guess or a threat?”
She stared back hard. “You’re the detective. What do you think?”
Henry stormed out. That made up his mind. He would not be threatened. She’d go down with the rest of them if that was what it took to get to the truth.
The waxy floor made little sticky noises from his shoes as he walked out of the hospital room.
“Henry!”
Henry practically jumped out of his skin as Quillen grabbed his arm.
“Jesus. How long have you been out here?”
Quillen said, “Not long. I figured I’d find you here. I’ve got the lab results back.”
They walked together toward the front of the large building.
Henry asked, “And?”
“It’s complicated. As we thought, it’s a cocktail of amphetamines for stimulation, probably the ability to play for longer without feeling tired. There’s also some high-powered, and illegal, nootropics.”
Henry asked, “Nootropics?”
Quillen smiled and shook his head. “Have you been living under a rock? Nootropics are chemicals that enhance brain function. Weak ones might give you slightly better focus and concentration, but ones like in this pill have been shown to literally rewire your brain. People can learn huge amounts of material in extremely short time periods. I’m talking about things like becoming fluent in Chinese in a few weeks.”
Henry said, “That sounds amazing. And maybe a little impossible. Why is it banned?”
“Let’s just say that when you undo brain connections and don’t create new neural pathways with something major, like learning a language, the people literally became unhinged.”
Henry asked, “So how are these top players so well-adjusted?”
Quillen said, “Well, I told you it’s complicated. The expert said they were micro-dosing. This means it wasn’t enough to achieve any noticeable effect. But the chemical is so dangerous and difficult to produce, no one would accidentally put trace amounts in there. It’s in there for a reason, but no one knows why right now.”
They walked out the door and sat on a bench in the front courtyard. The plants were all fake, plastic replicas. Henry watched a bee settle on one of the flowers, and he wondered if it would fly away disappointed.
But then he turned to Quillen and said, “Nyissa is willing to tell me what’s going on.”
“Great! Do it.”
“No. It’s a trap. I can sense it. She’s threatening me with the money.”
Quillen took Henry’s hand. “We’ll hire you back full time if it’s about the money. Look at you. You’re out of the house and smiling. You love this, and you’re good at it.”
Henry said, “Yeah. Thanks. We’re going to get to the bottom of this together.”
“It sounds like she’s willing to talk, so I’ll have a word with the DA. He might be willing to give her immunity if it means we can go after this illegal drug trade at the source. I should go.”
Quillen leaned in and kissed Henry.
Henry said, “Stay safe.”
Quillen laughed. “I think I’m supposed to say that to you.”
Henry watched Quillen walk away and then got up and wandered aimlessly. That had sometimes worked in the past to put a bunch of clues together.
Henry felt so close. He didn’t know if he even needed the information from Nyissa if he could just think about it hard enough.
The walk took him farther than he expected, and he found himself lurking through his old hangouts around the Glistening Baboon. He hadn’t noticed how rundown and decrepit they looked when he was drunk. He missed his old drinking buddies, but he also knew those people were no good for him.
It was time to finally move on.
He made his way back to his apartment as he thought about the case.
Henry wanted to believe it was like the other drug-related crimes he’d cracked: a dealer skims some from his supply and he can’t come up with the money to pay it back, so the supplier kills the dealer to show the others not to make the same mistake—simple.
But something felt different this time.
The Restin Corporation had a hand in it, and he didn’t understand how or why. The feeling of not knowing unsettled him, and that drive to get settled is what made him so great at his job in the past.
Henry got back to the apartment, ready to crash for the day.
Ykülma did something weird: she spoke to him first, without his prompting.
“There is a message for you, and it has been tagged urgent.”
Henry said, “Play message.”
Quillen’s voice came through.
“Henry, get your ass to the station as fast as you can. Nyissa has been brought in, and she’s taking the plea deal. She’s going to tell us everything she knows. We’re about to learn the truth!”
Chapter 28
Nyissa sat in the interrogation room with her lawyer and the DA and someone to record everything. Henry paced outside of the room as he and Quillen watched through a one-way mirror. The sound got projected to them through a speaker.
Nyissa had the look of a hardened criminal, but that was probably the withdrawal. The hospital released her to police custody; her fluids had been restored and she’d be okay as long as she took the medication to ease her symptoms.
She stared across the table with hollowed and narrowed eyes. Then she turned to her lawyer.
Her voice was softer than Henry expected.
“You’re sure you can protect me? They’ll kill me like they killed Zane when they find out I talked.”
The lawyer nodded, and the DA asked, “Who are ‘they’?”
Nyissa took a breath like she was going to begin, but hesitated.
She said, “I’ll tell you everything I know, but it’s probably not as much as you think. I’ve played a lot of VR games at a high level, but none of them made me feel the way Eburnean Passage did. After a few hours, I would feel exhausted.”
Henry nodded along. He recalled the same thing, but he had blamed it on being up late and not sleeping well and not being used to the equipment.
Nyissa continued, “I think the Restin Corporation does this on purpose somehow. Anyone aspiring to become a pro player will play for long enough chunks of time to be almost knocked unconscious for the next twelve hours or so. I used to sleep so much after a session and then get frustrated at the lost time. That’s actually how I met Zane. He DM’d me.”
The DA quickly turned to the lawyer, and the
lawyer whispered something to Nyissa.
She clarified, “He direct messaged me after it happened the first time. I imagine the Restin Corporation has a trigger set up, and someone in your area will always contact you about the drug. At the time, I didn’t think about it as being addictive or illegal or even a cognitive enhancement. It just let me practice longer without getting tired.”
Nyissa fidgeted as she figured out what to say. She continued, “I bought them from Zane. I didn’t think about trying to cut back or stop. Playing Eburnean Passage was my livelihood. What was I supposed to do if I stopped taking the pills? Then, at some point, I realized I couldn’t stop, even if I didn’t go into the game for a while.”
Nyissa put her head in her hands, and her hair fell onto the wooden table in front of her. If this was an act, Henry bought it. The pieces were coming together.
Quillen whispered to Henry, “That’s brilliant. They put something into the VR gear to create the need for the drug. Then they manufactured the drug to sell to the players.”
Quillen grunted and then said, “But what I don’t get is how they get away with it. They’re a major corporation, and they go through huge audits of their finances and taxes. They can’t have a bunch of illegal drug money flowing in with no one noticing.”
Henry’s heart stopped.
He recalled something from when he was grinding for levels.
Henry said, “I think I know how they do it. Get Zane’s credit card records. I’ll be right back.”
Henry jogged out of the station and called an autocab to get home. He was glad for their speed for once.
Henry burst into his apartment and grabbed his VR gear. He settled into the game world with a new fear. He didn’t know what this stuff did to his brain chemistry to create the need for a drug.
But those types of thoughts would need to wait.
The world map of Eburnean Passage appeared in front of Henry. He traveled to the town he had gone to back when he was grinding for levels.
He laughed at the vomiting Founder Statue and then entered the nearest shop.
The whimsical flute melody returned, and he examined the items carefully.
