Knaves

by Abbott, Alana Joli; Meadors, Melanie R. ;

  “How you know my number? How you know you could even call?!”

  “Leitch said you might want to talk someday. This was the number on your account.”

  “Leitch teach you anything else?”

  “You want me to forget this?”

  “No. Naw. Look, I’m interested in transferring some wealth. I want you outside of the game, learn whatever you can.”

  Inside the game, Akoni smiled. “I’m excited ’bout what we can do together, boss.” ’Course he was. Sol didn’t want to admit he was, too.

  CHASE WAS A prophet, but he couldna seen this. Zed’s players conquered Av. Conquered its avis and NPCs. Took all the in-game currency and added it to their own accounts. Stole the identities of a bunch of players, and the stupid ones got caught. Alma Works didn’t shut down the project. No. They cooperated with the authorities, condemned the thefts, helped pay the legal fees of the victims. Av stayed wrecked, and Zed flourished, even gained players. Why let players destroy one of the game worlds they spent so much time and money makin’? They’d quote their advertizin’. GloriusCivilization was always “Part Online RPG, Part Social Experiment.” Old Sol knew better. Somehow, someway they were profiting from all this. Maybe had their own avis runnin’ around outside the game on the down-low, too.

  Sol felt bad for the innocent, but he never cared about Av. Never got involved in lootin’ it. He was more grateful to the players who didn’t know how to train their avis, gave him more cover once the law and the media came down on them.

  HE GOT THE text while he reached for a box of Fruity Puff Splosion in the middle of Al’s Corner Store:

  Old Sol was surprised Akoni texted. He liked gettin’ his voice heard. Sol opened the link. That was his first mistake.

  The video started to play, and Sol tapped pause. He rushed into the bathroom to hide in a stall. Jacked his earbuds in. He listened to the deep heaves troublin’ his lungs, pulled his collar over his mouth to quiet himself.

  He tapped play.

  Hard to tell from the camera angle, but it was some kinda roller coaster or one of those water rides that goes into a tunnel. No smatterin’ of conversations or children yellin’ in excitement. The track was quiet at night. The park was probably closed, and a couple of towering lights shone down on the track. A maintenance man carrying a lantern and a toolbox crawled over the cars and headed towards the tunnel. Another maintenance man held an industrial-sized flashlight in the front car and aimed it at the tunnel.

  “…belt frayed… line…” the voice came muffled from the tunnel. The lantern light fell faint on the tracks in the dark.

  “Okay, that wasn’t in the report,” the man in the front car said.

  “Take a… won’t be free… Friday…”

  The cars stuttered and lurched with a bang. “Hey, hey, hey, HEY, HEY!!!” the man in the front car yelled.

  The cars picked up speed. Severed wires as they plowed forward, and the lantern in the tunnel went out.

  “Brian! Brian!”

  The cars disappeared in the dark, rushin’ in a man who couldn’t stop the kill. His screams shredded his voice raw ’til all he could do was gasp and wail. The sound of the impact wasn’t on the video, but the crash racked all of Old Sol’s bones.

  “Why you show… why you show me that?!”

  The phone rang.

  “Who sent that text, brother?”

  Sweat ran from Sol’s forehead and stung his eyes. “Wha’d’you mean?” he wheezed.

  “Didn’t come from me.”

  “You seen it?”

  “Just now.”

  “Why would anybody send me that? Want me to think it was you, Akoni?”

  “The cat in the tunnel used to be in Out-Red.”

  The phone vibrated in his hand. Sol opened the new message:

  Brie flitted back and forth in the kitchen. Put the cereal in the pantry. Opened and closed the refrigerator again and again in her comfortable rhythm. Old Sol pushed his phone earbuds deep in his ears and turned on the TV in the living room, pretended to watch the Mets.

  “You sure he used to be in Outpost Redshift?” Sol whispered.

  “Yeah, he left to start his own guild.”

  A whoosh of water from the sink. Brie’s busy hands shuffl ed cups and plates.

  “You don’t have to wash them dishes. Make the kids do ’em.”

  “Every time I come over, the kids haven’t done ’em. You haven’t done ’em, either. I won’t stand a house with a dirty kitchen.”

  “Okay, my universe…”

  “You need me to pitch in to get this dishwasher fixed?”

  “Naw, Brie. I told you don’t worry ’bout the day-to-day.”

  He’d been so busy researchin’ worthy recipients of the cause he forgot to put in a little something into his own account to get the dishwasher repaired or clean and caulk the tiles in the bathroom upstairs. The kids said it was turnin’ into a lab experiment in there. Why hadn’t he taken no money for his own solar system?

  “I think his avi started the ride.”

  Sol took in a deep breath and exhaled. His closed eyelids fluttered. “That don’t make sense.”

  “You say something?” Brie called.

  “On the phone,” he said, jumping up from the couch and rushing up the stairs.

  “What happens when an avi don’t have a human?” Akoni asked.

  “Don’t know. What would you do if you murdered me?”

  Sol didn’t mean to slam the offi ce door behind him. He flinched and hoped the kids didn’t hear, that Brie didn’t think she’d irked him. He hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. He wanted her to create here for a while.

  “Don’t you even joke like that, man.” Akoni went silent for a moment, and then, “Brian knew what we’ve been up to.”

  “Brian was up to it himself.”

  “Sure, brother, but if his avi is coverin’ his tracks … “

  “Tracks,” Old Sol said. He laughed in spite of himself. “Where the hell could I even go to hide from an AI?”

  “You let me worry ’bout that. Let me keep you hid… Hey, you need to log on. Check your inventory, brother.”

  The newest image was a white icon representing a letter named “Invite.” At the top of the letter, the logo for the Crieve Falls guild, a modern take on the infinity symbol with two hissin’ dragon heads where the loops would be. Sol thought he was ’bout to read a challenge from one of the other top guild’s leaders. He was ready to get lost in the game for a while, even when the game hunted him in real life.

  But the name on the letter wasn’t the one he was expectin’:

  “You got any idea what Gladius knows?”

  Akoni kneeled in front of the chest at the foot of the bed and stocked up on ammo. “No, but we got no choice but to trust him.”

  “No doubt.”

  Akoni stood in front of Sol in the screen, ready to go.

  “Auto off.”

  Akoni’s face fell. “You sure ’bout that?”

  Sol shrugged. “Gotta earn that cred from the cockiest AI in the game.”

  Sol entered first-person mode and left the warehouse. They took the park through the center of the city. Sun rays glinted across skyscraper windows and reflected down onto the ponds. At the far reaches of the park were waterfalls, where the Crieve Falls district got its name. That guild was so powerful it took the territory and the name for itself.

  “Stay frosty,” Akoni said in his ear.

  Sol stepped into the unlocked condo. Seventies funk blared in his headphones. Guitar licks in stereo traveled from one ear to the other. He expected Thomas Gladius’s player’s pad to be modern, bright, white light everywhere, but the interior was styled up with cherry wood wainscoting, exposed beams, and polished bronze light fixtures. He looked up. Gladius danced on the balcony. Sol counted three times through the animation loop before the avi acknowledged him.

  “Auto off, huh? That’s bold.”

  “You didn’t ask to meet with Ako
ni. You wanted to talk to me.”

  Gladius ran down the stairs and shook Sol’s hand before he could react. Here was the avatar who led Av’s destruction, face to face. He wasn’t as goofy as the flat images on wikis made him seem. Otto898 did more than make him look like the member of a homicidal boy band. An imaginary wind swept bangs over one of his lilac eyes and kept them in place.

  Sol pulled Akoni’s hand away and took a step back. “Why am I here?”

  “I’m a fan of Chase’s work.” A small smile, but it flashed between menacing and curious.

  “The invitation you sent wasn’t for Chase.”

  Akoni spoke up in his ear. “Gladius is here, but his player’s in the game on a raid.”

  “You there?” Gladius waved his hand in Akoni’s face.

  “Sorry,” Sol said.

  “You went idle. Checking in with Akoni?”

  “You’re not raiding with Otto898.”

  Gladius crinkled his brow in confusion. “I can be in more than one place… Right! Chase…”

  “I’m no intermediary.”

  “I get it, but I’m a big fan of his. He’d never talk to me, though. I’m Chase Morrey’s biggest rival on the planet, and I’m not even human!”

  If Sol was an AI, he might be amused by that, too. But he didn’t have some need to bring the game into the real world, despite some of its perks.

  “I know about your former guildmate, what Hayden did to him,” Gladius said. “Akoni can only keep you hidden for so long. When we get a task, we complete that task.”

  “Did Hayden give himself a task to kill me?”

  “We’ll do anything we can to stay alive, just like you. Brian was going to expose all of our… activities outside of the game. I can’t have that, so I sent you the link. Hayden knows you’re a witness to the murder, thanks to you accessing that link.” Gladius’s lips parted in a satisfied grin.

  “You put Sol’s life in danger?!”

  Gladius looked up with a small smile. “’Sup, Akoni?”

  Sol grabbed the laser pistol at his hip. Gladius raised his hands in surrender. Pullin’ the trigger wouldna done no good. Gladius would respawn in the bedroom upstairs.

  “You get me what I need from Chase. I make Hayden focus on what’s more important.”

  “What’s more important than self-preservation for Hayden?” Sol asked, starin’ at Gladius through the reticule.

  “You have any idea what Chase’s been up to?”

  EVERY TIME CHASE’S secretary turned to answer the phone, Old Sol glared a hole through her back. Since the convo with Gladius, he caught himself clenching his teeth. A dull ache greeted him behind the eyes when he woke up, and it pounded deep in his head now. He fanned himself with a magazine. The air was on, but the Nashville humidity had settled under his shirt.

  “Sol?”

  Chase made a slow-dog strut down the hallway from his office with his hands in his pockets. From his smile, he was a man who slept good, way too good than shoulda been normal. Sol hadn’t seen him since their meeting in New York. Chase’s shoulders slouched back, so different than when he was stiff and hunched forward in front of Sol’s desk. His hair seemed blonder, too. Chase had some new bangs swept in front of his left eye.

  “Where we gonna do this?” Sol asked.

  “I’ve gotta lab.”

  They didn’t take the elevator. Sol followed Chase down. One story… two stories… three stories… four stories…

  A doctor in scrubs—at least Sol hoped she was a doctor—took him into a small room with Chase. It looked like a spa, with a massage table and a tabletop zen garden at the corner of the room. The only things betrayin’ any kind of medical procedures were goin’ on were the full vial rack and syringes on the counter. Lightning bolted up Sol’s spine at the sight of them. He gritted his teeth.

  “Give us a minute,” Chase said.

  The doctor left.

  “You won’t feel it.”

  “This room mic’d up?”

  Chase leaned against the counter. “Say whatever you’ve got to.”

  Old Sol nodded. “Who else besides your employees know you sittin’ on this tech?”

  “I… took over the research from a failed company—”

  “You failed it.”

  “Leitch helped me acquire it. Their investors are now my investors. A few discreet clients… I’m surprised you wanna be one of them.”

  Sol sat at the edge of the massage table slumped over. There wasn’t no lie good enough. Certainly couldn’t tell him ’bout Gladius or what he wanted. “You put me in a bad position, man. When I found out you had all this… I gotta protect my solar system. I can’t just expect Akoni to do it.”

  Chase nodded and smiled. “I’m sorry I went behind your back, but with some of the things Zed players are doing with their AIs now, you’re gonna be glad you’ve got these.” He raised a vial.

  Chase opened the door. Old Sol laid back as the doctor came in. He squeezed his eyes shut and flinched under the cool alcohol swab to his temple. That sterile sting filled his nostrils. He breathed hard and fast, in and out, in and out his nose as he pressed his lips tight. The doctor gripped his forehead. He felt a tap to the side of his head.

  “All right, hon. You’re good to go,” she said.

  He opened his eyes, pantin’ and glued by his sweat to the table.

  He didn’t feel no different. He didn’t want to. “It… worked?”

  “There’s no reason it shouldn’t have. You’ll wanna log on as soon as you can. If it didn’t work, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

  CHASE’S SON GREETED them back upstairs. He pounded on the glass of Chase’s office door. Tiny handprints smudged all over ’cause he couldn’t wait for Daddy to get it open. Red juice stained his smile.

  “Looks like you got some of that on your shirt,” Chase said turnin’ the handle.

  The boy looked down. He looked back up at his father and scrunched up his face. Chase sighed and picked him up.

  “I’m thinking about nano for my son. He cries too much.”

  “He’s three!” Old Sol threw up his hands. “He’s supposed to cry.”

  Chase cocked his head to the side. “He’s not an infant anymore.”

  Old Sol gritted his teeth and didn’t say nothin’.

  “You can use my laptop. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Soon as Sol entered Zed, it was like he put a VR visor on, but he was lookin’ at the screen with his naked eyes.

  “Auto off…”

  Unlike VR, he was a man in two places at once. His butt was in that chair, but he was standing in the game. He picked up a mug. He could see the roughness of the polygons the closer it got to his face, but the curved porcelain was cold in his hand.

  The chat invite notification dinged. “I’ll take you to Hayden when you get home,” Gladius said.

  “THOSE ARE… SOME unusual skills you picked up,” Gladius said. He stuck his head close to Akoni’s face, admired him from all angles.

  Old Sol grinned. “Aren’t they?”

  “We share this with Hayden, and he will leave you alone. This secret we’re sharing will keep us all quiet and doin’ our own thing.”

  They shook on it.

  As they approached the bombed-out office building, something squeezed Sol’s heart in a vice. It waited for him to move wrong. Breathe wrong. He realized, without never seeing him, Hayden had him in the scope of a sniper rifle. He didn’t look up, but the avi had to be perched in one of the upper pane-less windows. Sol slowed and let Gladius walk several steps ahead.

  This what it feel like for you? he thought at Akoni.

  I never detected snipers this quick. You musta got a hold of the code.

  Gladius looked up towards a floor that used to be conference rooms. “Hayden, it’s cool. He’s got it.”

  A figure decked out in black leather slipped out the window. The buckles strapped along Hayden’s jacket glinted in the sun. He let go and dropped thirty
stories feet first. Before he hit the ground, the shock absorbers in his boots gripped the concrete in a cracklin’ electronic spray.

  “You let me copy Chase’s intel?”

  Sol nodded. “You let me and my family be? You can have it.”

  Heat crept down Old Sol’s forehead and watered his eyes. Something like a tiny needle pricked inside the center of his head. Soon as Hayden finished the scan, Gladius backed away like a jack rabbit in reverse. Sol stood trapped between the two of them.

  “Where you goin’?” Sol feared turning to look, leavin’ Hayden at his blindside. But there wasn’t any. He couldn’t see Hayden, but he could sense exactly where he was.

  Gladius raised his hands. “I’ll let the two of you settle this.”

  Hayden whipped out a pistol. “I can’t kill you in here, but I can sure as hell distract you long enough.”

  Sol sprinted around the back of the building before the first laser fired. “Hell does that mean?”

  I’m not gonna be able to hack him, Sol thought.

  Naw, Akoni thought. He’s pretty shifty Programmer.

  Sol headed through the back entrance and up the stairwell. He was halfway up the stairs when Hayden threw the door open wide, and it smacked against the wall. Sol waited for Hayden’s footfalls, but there weren’t any. He shielded himself behind the railing and peeked through the bars. The stairwell was silent except for the door slowly squeakin’ closed.

  Implants? Sol remembered a couple of raids with Brian. He infiltrated a gang hideout once and got them into an impenetrable compound. Was that with a phase mod? Did Brian take Hayden straight through the damn walls?

  A flashbang could give you some cover, Akoni thought.

  Sol took a peek over the railing. No one there. He reached for a flashbang on the back of his belt. Static popped above him like firecrackers goin’ off. Sol looked up too late to find Hayden phasin’ through the ceiling. He stomped Sol in the chest before he could brace himself. He tumbled down a flight and crashed into the wall. In front of the screen, spasms danced up and down Sol’s shoulder, but they quickly fell away.