by Mia Archer
Katie blushed. I blushed right along with her. Yeah, there was definitely something here, but it was still early days. For all that I had a flash of memory that included her making out with me in front of the cheering student body.
That was a nice memory.
“Um, so I don’t want to sound like I’m getting upset that you came along and saved me or anything,” I said. “But what the hell are both of you doing here?”
Katie looked away. She pointedly wasn’t looking at her father, either. He grimaced, and for a brief moment the kindly old dude thing he was going for disappeared and the real world seemed to come screaming back.
Right. They might’ve come along and saved my ass, but there was more to it than that. They wanted something from me in exchange for that ass saving. Of course they did. Nothing was free in this world.
“I was hoping you might be able to help me in return for me helping you,” he said.
“Of course,” I said. “Because the world doesn’t make sense unless one rich asshole is trying to screw over another rich asshole using the peasants to do that screwing, right?”
He looked genuinely scandalized that I would talk to him like that. I got the feeling the director of the fucking space elevator itself didn’t get many people speaking their mind to him on a day to day.
Then he smiled. It was a small smile at first, barely a crack, but it got wider and wider as he started to laugh.
“Y’know Katie here told me you were a firebrand, but I didn’t believe her until just now,” he said.
“You’d better believe her,” I said.
I knew it was probably a bad idea to try to intimidate another all powerful super rich person, especially one who’d been nice enough to save my ass very recently, but I was so sick and tired of everything that’d happened lately that I was ready to speak my mind and I didn’t give a fuck what the people I was speaking my mind to thought about that.
I figured the worst they could do was try and kill me, and honestly at this point I’d already faced that down a couple of times. What was facing it down one more time?
“Katie told me you were refreshingly honest about how you see the world,” he said. “And I have to say it’s a point of view I agree with. Though I’m surprised to see someone voicing it to me.”
“What do you mean you agree with me?” I asked.
“I think it’s terrible what the people in the elevators have done to people living down on the surface,” he said. “I’d think that should be obvious. You’re supposed to be a smart girl to be able to get in here without a legacy.”
Well then. That was probably the single most backhanded compliment I’d ever gotten in my life. Luckily I could give some backhanded compliments myself. Or maybe they were just insults. I was in a mood to let loose with some insults right about now.
“You’re running the elevator here. You basically control a quarter of the world, maybe more, because you have all the access to space. Why would you want to give people down on the surface more power? Why haven’t I seen anything that would make me think you’re trying to give people down on the surface more power?”
A lot of the anger I’d felt all my life about the precarious situation of people living down on the surface was pouring out. Again it was a situation where I knew it was a bad idea to antagonize the man who’d been nice enough to save my ass, and again I didn’t give a fuck.
“Well that’s where things get complicated,” he said. “You see I run the elevator, but that doesn’t mean I have absolute power. I’m not ruling the elevator like a dictator, for all that it might look that way to someone looking up at us from the surface.”
I mulled that over. It was entirely possible, maybe even probable, that he was saying all of this to try and get on my good side. To try and get whatever the hell it was he obviously needed from me. But there was something about the way he was talking that had me almost believing him.
And there was something else, as well. I turned to look at that something else.
“Y’know I think your daughter is all the answer I need as to whether or not I can trust you,” I said.
“My daughter?” Director Reynolds said.
“Yeah,” I said. “She talked to me. She gave me the time of day when there were so many others here at the Academy who didn’t want anything to do with me.”
I turned and forced myself to hold his gaze, for all that I was holding the gaze of a man who could have me disappeared off the face of the earth, literally, and no one would know or miss me. It’s not like I even had the leverage of an embarrassing screenshot to keep myself out of the frying pan or the fire when it came to this dude.
“I figure anyone who raises a daughter who does the right thing like that is someone who maybe practices what he preaches,” I said. “Not that I have much choice anyway. What do you need from me?”
“We’re going to need that screenshot,” he said. “Everything is about leverage up here, and a screenshot featuring the sons and daughters of the powerful on earth and in the elevators will go a long way towards giving me some of the leverage I need.”
I sighed. I guess I should’ve known it would come down to that damned picture.
“Consider it yours,” I said. “Is that all?" Then another thought occurred to me. “What the hell is going to happen to Chelsey, by the way?”
Director Reynolds grimaced. I figured that meant there was a pretty good chance she was going to escape the justice she so obviously deserved. I steeled myself for him to tell me just that.
“It’s going to be difficult,” he said. “We’re currently interrogating the men she had with her and seeing if we can get anything out of them, but if they’re not willing to say anything then… I want to make reforms, but they’re not going to happen overnight.”
The shrug that went along with his words told me everything I needed to know. There was no way the courts here in the elevator, courts that were designed to favor whoever could throw around the most money and influence, were ever going to believe the word of a rizon over someone who had the kind of connections that came with being the daughter of a high rich person in the elevator.
“So you’re saying she’s going to get away with it?” I asked.
“I’m saying she’s not going to see justice through the systems we set up for that sort of thing,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Though if we get a copy of that screenshot and it gets leaked to the right sources then it’s entirely possible something might be done about her eventually.”
There was a cold certainty to what he said that sent a chill running through me. He looked like he’d love nothing more than to hurt Chelsey, and that momentary hardness almost made me hold back on giving him what he wanted.
Though ultimately it’s not like I had much of a choice. I could try and go against one of the four most powerful men in the world, but something told me that wouldn’t end well. I wouldn’t even have the fight in the game world to help buoy me in the real world this time around.
Something told me Director Reynolds wasn’t the kind of man who had the kind of time to fuck around in a video game all day long, even if his daughter was the kind of person who had that kind of time what with being at the Academy and all.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll get that picture to you. Don’t worry about that.”
“I figured we could come to some agreement,” he said with a grin. He slapped his legs. “Now if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to leave you and my daughter alone. I imagine you have a lot to talk about.”
He stood and made his way to the door. It opened with a silent swish, revealing armed guards on the other side. Then the doors closed and it was just me and Katie alone in her room.
I was painfully aware of just how alone we were. It’d been a long time since I’d been alone with a girl in her room like this. Way too long.
Again I didn’t really count what’d happened in the game. That wasn’t the real world, for all that it felt surprisingly re
alistic.
I worried things might be awkward, but then Katie practically leapt on me and then I forgot about everything else as I enjoyed the delicious feeling of making out with her.
I wasn’t sure how long that went on, but eventually I reluctantly pulled away from that kiss and stared into the eyes. I still couldn’t quite believe this was happening, but now that it was happening I wasn’t going to knock it.
“Y’know I’ve been wanting to do that for a hell of a long time,” she said, still grinning as she pulled a strand of hair away from her face.
“So why didn’t you do it earlier?” I asked, hitting her with a stupid grin of my own.
“I don’t know?” she said with a shrug that told me exactly what it was.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I totally understand. The Director’s daughter can’t be seen hanging around with a rizon, after all.”
She grabbed my chin and pulled me up to have a look at her again. She searched my eyes, and I got the feeling there was something underpinning that searching. She looked sad, and finally she sighed.
“What have they done to you that you automatically think that?” she said.
I blinked. I wasn’t sure what she was on about here.
“Um, what do you mean?” I asked.
“I talked to you all the time. I acted interested. You were always so standoffish though. Like you didn’t want anything to do with me. Eventually I figured you weren’t interested. I had no idea…”
My mind reeled as she spoke. She’d been interested in me this entire time. The whole reason she talked to me wasn’t because she was one of the nicer stuck up rich assholes at the Academy, though that certainly had something to do with it. She’d been interested in me, and I’d been pushing her away because of my own prejudices.
Damn. To say that I felt like a fucking idiot for what I’d done to her would be the understatement of the century.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Well you can certainly make it up to me,” she said, hitting me with a goofy grin that told me exactly what she was expecting.
I threw myself at her and then we were making out again. Then we were doing more than making out.
Hey, it’d been awhile. I was going to enjoy the fuck out of this!
39
Back to the Game
“Do we have to do it this way?” Katie asked. “The one in my room is so much more comfortable.”
I smiled at Jessica as we made our way through the Etherea lab. She seemed a heck of a lot happier to see me now than she had the first time I’d been in here.
In fact there were a lot of people who seemed a hell of a lot happier to see me these days than they had in the bad old days.
I couldn’t figure out if that was because I’d bested Chelsey who, it turns out, had been something of a bitch to everyone, or if it was because I was dating the Director’s daughter and had more cachet than back when I was a simple scholarship case rizon.
Either way I was still wary of anyone who seemed like they wanted to be my friend, but I was also willing to give people more of a chance. After learning that Katie had been trying to get with me this entire time and I’d been pushing her away I was suddenly wary of doing the same thing to other people.
“This place has its charm,” I said.
Katie looked at Jessica and then looked back at me. Her eyes narrowed like she was suspicious about exactly what charms this lab held.
“Not like that,” I said. “Jessica is very pretty, but I like this place. It’s where I was playing when everything went down, and it’s not like there’s anyone else using the place.”
“You’ve got that right,” Jessica said. “We had a few people coming around to check it out after everything that happened with you, but it’s not like they wanted to stick around when they could go back to their personal units.”
“Right,” I said. “Well I’ll be needing a new unit since Chelsey smashed the one in my usual room,” I said.
“Of course, Jessica said. “We’ve got a couple reserved at the back. Well, not reserved so much as there’s never anyone coming in here to use the things, but you know what I mean.”
“Right,” I said, stepping back to the double rooms that had been reserved for me and Katie. “I’ll see you on the flip side!”
“See you in there,” Katie said. “I can’t wait to try out some of the simulation software in there. I hear it’s way more interesting than some of the stuff you can get up to in the real world.”
I shivered and goose bumps rose over my body unbidden. We’d been doing some pretty interesting things in the real world over the past couple of nights, and days for that matter, but now that I’d had that real world experience I was finally willing to open myself up to some of the possibilities that existed within the game itself.
I sat down on the comfortable bed and it formed to my body just like the unit in the first room I’d been using. That one was still walled off with tape to let people know it was out of commission.
I wondered if they were ever going to get around to fixing that. Chelsey’s dad was the one who’d provided the cash for this lab to be a thing, after all, and it’s not like he was going to be all that keen on spending his money to rebuild the lab.
Not when my understanding was he was spending most of his money on attorneys to keep Chelsey out of trouble and to ward off the many attacks that’d been coming his way now that the rich and powerful in the elevator sensed weakness.
I pushed those thoughts out of my head. That was stuff that could potentially come back and bite me in the ass, but as long as I had the ear of Katie’s dad it’s not like there was much Chelsey or her dad could do to hurt me.
At least I hoped there wasn’t much they could do to hurt me.
A glow filled the room as the new Etherea crystal pulsed to life. Then I was moving down a tunnel and found myself back in the same place I’d been when I left the game. Standing in the middle of the throne room where I’d defeated Chelsey. NPCs milled around cleaning things, and the statue was right there giving off that same faint glow it’d been giving off the last time I was in here.
Though that glow had been a hell of a lot more intense the last time around. That fight with Chelsey had been a trip.
The glow was starting to get more intense again. I also noted that one of the NPCs that was doing some repair work threw down their tools and went running out of the massive room, but I figured that could wait.
There were far more important things going on here now. Like that goddess stepping down from her statue. One moment the statue glowed with divine energy, and the next a being of pure energy stepped out of the statue and looking down at me with a faint smile playing across her face.
Then even that disappeared as her body changed from a being of pure energy to the beautiful face I recognized from our first couple of meetings. She took a couple of steps towards me, and with every step she seemed to get smaller and smaller until she stood before me and was the same height as yours truly.
She smiled, and then really surprised me by leaning in and giving me a hell of a hug. Like it didn’t seem like she should be that strong considering how slight she was, but I guess she had the power of a goddess backing her up. She could probably really throw me around if she wanted to.
Now there was an intriguing thought. Finally she put me down, though she kept her hands on my shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’ve freed me, champion.”
“It was nothing,” I said.
She searched my eyes for a moment, that smile never leaving her face.
“I can see what you’ve had to endure both in this world and in yours to be my champion, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. It most definitely was not “nothing,” no matter how much you might protest.”
“Of course you aren’t quite done yet,” the goddess said.
“I’m not?” I said. “But I freed you.”
“You freed me, but that doesn�
�t change the fact that you’re still my champion and there is still a great deal that needs to be done in this world,” she said.
“But I have no idea how to conquer a game world. Where do I even start with something like that?” I asked.
She smiled. “My way is the way of the subtle influence. Not that brute force mind control your friend was using.”
“She’s no friend of mine,” I said, briefly wondering what was happening to Chelsey right now and then deciding that I both didn’t want to know and didn’t particularly give a fuck what was happening to her.
“I know,” she said. “And that’s why I know you’re the perfect champion to go forth and conquer.”
And with that she started to take some steps back. She grew larger and larger until she became a bright and shining figure once more. Finally she merged with the statue, and then she was gone.
I shook my head. Talk about weird. I looked around the room, and then blinked when I realized I had company. A large crowd had gathered, and they were looking up at me expectantly.
“Um, hi?” I said. “Who the hell are you?”
The people continued staring. I thought I recognized a couple from that screenshot I’d inadvertently taken, though it was difficult to be sure.
“Um, so were y’all maybe going to tell me what the hell is going on here?” I asked.
“You freed us,” one of the girls said, smiling up at me.
“You’re welcome?” I said. “I mean that’s nice that you’re all free and everything, but I don’t know what that…”
“We are in your debt,” another one, a dude, said.
“And we were kind of wondering what your orders were,” yet another dude said.
I looked that one up and down. He was the sort of Adonais that would’ve been pretty nice to look at if you were into the dudes. Which I wasn’t. There were plenty of ladies who were their own brand of delicious eye candy though.
“Um, right,” I said. “I have no idea what the hell is going on here.”
“Chelsey sent us out in the world to make money and gather information for her,” one of the girls said, looking to the side and blushing.
