by gipsika
Whatever her connection to Nickells, he thought, it would have to be broken. He couldn’t risk that she should get hurt in the proceedings.
He emerged from the bathroom, got dressed in his uniform with a clean shirt, fastened his gun belt and put on his heavy-duty boots. And he opened the cupboard door to glower at his bulletproof vest which he had moved from the kitchen to its correct place in his wardrobe last night. That piece of armour plating intimidated her. He was not wearing it today. It was in any case going to be mostly office work if he was not mistaken. He had an uneasy feeling whenever he didn’t wear the vest for work; but maybe that needed to be addressed for the phobia it probably was.
He went into the study to check if there was really nothing he could do for his computer.
It didn’t look as though the computer had been damaged, just the power point and the plug, but he would only be able to tell once he switched it on. So the plug had to be repaired. Had the download finished in time? It occurred to him that if it had been interrupted, the whole game may be lost. Unless Nickells had backups. A professional like him? Of course he had backups! Connor resolved to find them and confiscate them, and rebuild the game from them. His virus had deleted the game off all the servers on the net, and seeing that Nickells was in custody, he’d have to wait. Or take an active hand. He was getting ahead of himself. Maybe the computer was intact and the download was complete.
He returned to the lounge where Nadee was standing at the window. And he stopped in the doorway, his breath going missing: Glorious morning sunlight was pouring over her like a blessing. She looked ephemeral, like a spirit, like an otherworldly being of pure magic. Untouched by harsh reality.
And his heart went into spasm. Damn! He realized what this was.
He hadn’t been in love before, if this was what the real deal was like. All he could think of was that wish – that burning wish – that she must feel the same about him. And now he also admitted to himself that it was that same wish that had driven him crazy, unable to sleep, the whole night as he had sat watching her over glasses of brandy. Not the fact that she had carried an illegal memory stick from a hacker right into his apartment and wrecked his download. That hardly featured, right now.
She turned, raised large, opalescent eyes at him.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
That did it. He was over at the window in a second, his hand digging in his pocket for the keys, his other hand grasping her wrists.
“Give here, girl, can’t keep you locked up!”
The look of surprise on her face was well worth it as he unlocked the handcuffs.
“Now you won’t run away please, will you?” he said as he stuffed the keys back into his pocket and the handcuffs into his belt. She shook her head, speechless, her precious lips parted. She looked as though she were going to vanish into thin air in a moment. He touched her face to make sure she was actually real; and before he could stop himself, he kissed her. The magic sunlight poured down on them both like a halo. Time stopped.
*
Nancy ventured out of her hiding place in the garage, dipping into the garden. She collected an armful of fruit off the trees and vanished back into the garage. It was dark, dank and dusty in here; but she felt safer. No doubt the friggin’ pigs would be crawling all over the house sometime today. She’d have to find another hiding spot, perhaps even take to the stormwater drains like the four of them had done during their first jailbreak. But she wanted to find Faff first and see if there wasn’t any wisdom the old dragon could impart.
There was the sound of cars parking outside. She was too late. She gathered up the Dell, the power chord and the external drive into the old briefcase, crept out of the back door of the garage, and escaped through the grove over the fence into the neighbouring garden – another deserted house – and from there, headed down the road trying to look innocent carrying a briefcase with her. Maybe she ought to go where they didn’t expect her to: The library. Mike had said something about that Nadisda had organised him some friendly relations there.
*
Nadisda was the first to break the enchantment. She freed herself from that spellbinding kiss and placed her hand on Hugo’s chest, dazed.
“Wait! This is wrong.”
That sweet, mesmerizing whirlpool had her in its currents, and all she wanted was to surrender to it. There was a real person in that dreadful blue uniform. A great heart beating, and currently beating for her. A history, a life lived so far, a character with strength and hopefully, the capacity for change. She realized it was too late; she was caught in her own spell. She’d fallen for him.
But...
Hero Hugo gazed at her. She noted that his eyes were blue. And soft – as though she could reach in and hold his soul in her hand.
“Nadee!” he whispered, still holding her in his arms.
But she had warded against the spell! How could it still catch her? She glanced at the branches, the vines overhead; the whole grove had broken out in sweet white blossoms, decked out like a wedding reception. Birds were chirping sickening little melodies.
“Shoosh, yous!” she told them firmly. They shut up, giving indignant little chirps.
Hero Hugo noticed for the first time where they were. He gasped. “What the hell?”
“We’re in my home,” said Nadisda. “This was not supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen.”
“But we’re in my flat in New York!” objected Hugo.
She shook her head. “Not anymore. I don’t know how this worked.”
“We’re inside the game?”
She shook her head once again. “We’re in the Magic Realms, Hugo. The game is destroyed. Your virus ate it.”
“But...”
“We have to find our way back and get you home,” she said sensibly. “You should not be here.”
“The Realms exist outside of the game?”
“We think so.”
“And you actually are...”
“The forest fairy. Yes. You see? This is wrong. We’re not even the same species!”
A stunned moment.
“I don’t care,” said Hugo.
“You should.”
“You ensnared me?”
She pulled a face and tried to break out of his grasp. “Not intentionally. Well, not really intentionally... at least, I didn’t think it would... I concocted a curse and it went wrong...”
He kissed her. The whirlpool claimed her this time; she had no more fight in her. Things would have to go any way they had to. She admitted to herself that she had deliberately brewed a love spell to trip up Hero Hugo without causing him the damage Valentine had intended, because evil intent was simply not a part of her. And now the spell had backfired on her. She had to find her way out somehow. She needed to find that moonstone.
“You’re not in love with Mike Nickells,” he muttered as he broke the kiss.
She shook her head. Her eyes said the rest.
“Nadee,” whispered Connor, holding her tightly.
It would be so easy to fall into this and simply let it happen. She closed her eyes and wished for a solution. Wished so hard that it trickled out of her eye.
“Hey!” Connor held her away from him, studying her in astonishment. “Why are you crying?”
“It’s still wrong,” she said despondently. “You’re a villain. You have destroyed an entire world and tried to steal it from its creator.”
Connor stared at her. From that perspective it certainly made sense. Here, he was no law enforcement officer chasing after young hackers by any means available to him. Here he was a guest, and one who had behaved badly.
“What can I do to make it better for you?” he asked.
“Get Mike and his sister and Benita out of jail,” she said. “And give him back his game – if you have it. The way it was.”
“I can’t get them out
of jail,” he said. “It isn’t a simple matter of dropping charges. A criminal charge cannot be dropped because the prosecutor is the state. Only civil charges can be dropped.”
“But he’s turning over a new leaf!” said Nadisda, distressed. “I was coaching him nicely!”
“And I don’t know if I can give him his game back,” added Connor. “I don’t know if I have it. I don’t know how much my virus has destroyed, whether there are backups on some server somewhere...” He glanced around himself. “Though judging from where we are, there must be something that survives. It’s a matter of finding it.”
“Mike would be able to find it,” said Nadisda with conviction. “You have to get him released. Anything. On bail. Or on probation. Whatever. But not locked up. He must be able to get to his computers.”
“Those computers are stolen goods in the first place,” growled Connor.
“Then we go and pay the people they were stolen from,” said Nadisda. “We can fix it. He won’t hack into people’s bank accounts again, I promise it!”
“How can you promise it?” challenged Connor. “Are you going back to him?”
“Because,” said Nadisda, “he’s had a change of heart.” She sighed. “Wish you’d let it go. There are much larger things at stake here.”
Connor gazed into her eyes, trying to think about it and finding it impossible to think about anything except her.
This was insane. He was in love – as badly in love as he had never experienced before – with an illusion, a character from a game! His mind tried to find its way around that. How could she exist in the flesh, in the real world? She had to be a gamer. He had to get to the bottom of it.
And if she was indeed part of the game, there was no way he could hand back the controls to Nickells! What if the programmer changed her? Or deleted her? Damn, this was a desperate situation!
“You’re not leaving me,” he growled, holding her tightly.
Nadisda shook her head, infinite sadness in her eyes. “I’ll see this through to its end.”
“There is no end!” he argued. “This is a beginning!” He glanced around the grove. “So how do we get home?”
“Back to New York,” she corrected him. “I’d guess, the same way we got here?” And she kissed him, her wings opening subconsciously.
Time stopped.
*
11: Cyber
Someone was prowling around the house. Nancy hid in the bedroom, with its curtains closed. She had returned after a few hours at the library, first cautiously, but when she saw no cars around the place, more boldly. If she kept a low profile and escaped every time a car stopped, she’d probably be fine. Except that right now, she was caught in the house. She’d have to hope for an unattended moment and slip out of a door – front, back, it didn’t matter. And take the Dell and external drive with her.
She hoped the police would go easy on Mike, Jen and Ben. After all there was nothing Mike had committed since their last conviction that could in any way be proved. Sure, he’d nicked food and stuff from stores, and she had no idea where he’d ‘found’ that video card for Ben’s computer. But his main efforts had been entirely on creating that game; a project that was meant to boost them all into a legal lifestyle.
There was another thing that weighed on her. She was worried how Nadisda was holding up, right in the stronghold of the enemy. She had tried to find her in the game a few times this morning; but clearly the fairy was not asleep, and was caught in the real world. Maybe she’d have to help her with a jailbreak too.
“Fairy!” came the bright voice of a small child. “Come out, fairy! We know you’re here!”
She peered through the curtains, trying to see who was stalking around the house.
Only a small boy with his mother.
Nancy considered. If she were to help Mike in any way and get them all back out of jail, she’d have to make contact with the outside world. She had thought of getting at least one of the net-worthy laptops to some repair place, having some wiz resurrect it, and reloading the game properly online, making contact with the betas and rallying their support. But without Mike there to direct their play and overwrite the code as needed, she doubted that she’d cope. She’d be hunted down so fast by that scumbag in New York.
She needed to get a message to Mike. He’d know what to do. But she couldn’t do it herself, because she’d just be arrested too.
Was there any way in which she could persuade this kid here to drop off a message at the police station for a jailbird?
They hadn’t called her, though she knew that each of them had the right to one call. She suspected that Mike didn’t want to expose her and make her vulnerable to be tracked down. Still she needed to speak to him!
Well, perhaps she could charm this woman here into giving Mike a message. It was a risk. But she had to take it. She slipped out of the back door, rounded the house and approached the mother and son from the garden.
“Are you the fairy?” asked the little boy, running towards her. “You don’t dress like a fairy! Where are your wings?”
Act like a fairy, she thought and dropped to her knees to get to eye-level with him.
“You can only see them in moments when you really, really believe,” she said with a mysterious smile. And she glanced up at the mother, and got back to her feet, surprised.
That woman was looking at her as though she, too, believed Nancy were a fairy!
“Your secret is safe with us,” said the woman. “I’m Angela, and this is Danny. We saw you. You can tell us. Are those wings electronic?”
Nancy smiled and shook her head.
“I don’t know what you saw, lady,” she said.
“We were looking through a telescope and saw you fly in from the hills over there,” Angela pointed, “and we saw you land here, at the door. It was impressive, it looked like real fairy wings, so whatever it is you have here...”
“There is nothing electronic, I can promise you,” said Nancy.
“Mom, she’s just an ordinary girl!” said Danny, disappointed.
“I saw her fold her wings away, and they disappeared,” replied Angela. “That means, you must be some sort of mutant, right, girl?”
“It’s Nancy,” Nancy introduced herself.
“Can’t you open your wings for us just once, please?” begged Angela. “For Danny. You know, he lost his father last year, and every little bit of hope and belief I can give him, is a good thing.”
Nancy shrugged. “Sorry, lady, I really don’t know what you saw. Could it have been a trick of the light?”
Angela shook her head. “I definitely saw a fairy. So did Danny. We can’t both be crazy.”
Nancy shrugged again. “Actually, if you want to help me, I’d be very thankful.” She nodded at Danny. “There’s a wonderful grove around the back,” she said. “And he’s also welcome to take some of the fruit.”
“Yay!” shouted Danny and tore around to the back of the garden with a lot of noise.
“Maybe we can come to an agreement,” said Angela. “I help you with – whatever it is you said, and you agree to show your wings to Danny?”
“There’s a problem,” said Nancy, thinking very fast. The cooperation of this woman was worth gold. Was there a way of getting it without lying and pretending to be a fairy?
They had spotted Nadisda, this was pretty clear to her. But Nadisda was gone. Flew right into the lion’s den in New York, thought Nancy uneasily. Well, at least she was alive!
It all hinged on Mike. She needed to get to him, break him out of jail come what may. The first step was to send him a message. She thought frantically, while Angela studied her intently.
“Let’s sit down,” she invited, motioning to the steps up to the veranda. “This is complicated.”
They both sat down, Angela on the steps and Nancy on the low red wall flanking them.
“I’m n
o fairy,” she began.
“But -” protested Angela, but Nancy held up a hand.
“Still, what you saw was real,” she confirmed. “It wasn’t me, though. And the whole thing hinges on a friend of mine, and here is the problem – he’s...” Could she trust this woman? “He’s been locked up on false charges.”
“He’s in jail?” asked Angela, taken aback.
Nancy nodded. “They came and raided us and locked him and our other two friends up. Maybe they wanted to steal the fairy,” she fuelled Angela’s fire.
“So the state is already onto you kids!” said Angela in disgust. “You find an alien, and instantly the CIA...”
Nancy shrugged. “It’s how it goes. Would you do me a favour please? I only got away by luck. I can’t go and contact him. Can you give him a message from me? If we can get him and the others cleared, he can probably get the fairy back.”
“You mean, you guys had a real alien...”
Nancy nodded gravely. “You saw her. It was supposed to be a secret, but she got out somehow.”
“But where is she now?”
“Only Mike can find her,” said Nancy. “If he can. We are all extremely worried about her, but now because of the cops I can’t even try to go search for her.”
“I’ll bring him your message,” said Angela indignantly. “I’ll organize him a lawyer, too! And I’ll take it to the newspapers! Time the CIA got exposed in their nasty little games!”
Newspapers? Hell, no, thought Nancy. Please not!
“If you contact the newspapers, the CIA will be here in no time flash,” she pointed out. “Rather please help me get a message to Mike.”
“This is here at the police station down at the corner?” asked Angela.
“Yep.”
“Tell me your message,” said the woman. “I’ll give it to him.”
“Wait here, I’ll bring some paper,” said Nancy. “He must be able to give me a message back. Please just ask him what he needs. That is the only thing. I don’t know what else to do for them all. He must write the answer down for me or draw it.”
