by Alex Knight
The route to the canteen was simple, but highlighted on their minimaps anyway, and by the time it drew into view the activity in the hallway had slowed to a trickle. Apparently the crew had reached their various staging areas.
Mara led the ensigns into the canteen. Kaiden made to follow, before a hand grabbed him from behind and yanked him back. Before he could get his feet under him he was shoved into an empty room. The door slammed shut with a dull thud.
Kaiden stumbled to a stop, then spun around, flicking on his shield and raising his hammer. Zelda stood near the door, facing him.
“What the hell is your problem?” he shouted, lowering his hammer but keeping his shield at the ready.
“I don’t much like hired killers.”
Okay? Who does?
Kaiden felt his brow furrow.
“Thanks for sharing?” he said, unsure what she was on about. “Care to explain why you dragged me in here?”
“Why try to hide it?” She advanced forward a step. “You know what you did.” Another step. “You know why you’re in prison.” One more step and she was right up in his face, scowling. “You murdered my friend. You murdered Fred Bernstein.”
Kaiden sighed.
This again? It’s going to take a long time to prove my innocence if literally everyone thinks I’m guilty.
But the media had made sure of that, hadn’t they? His trial had been blasted across the networks, plastered in the headlines. He hadn’t had the best access to the outside world while imprisoned before his trial, but from what limited information he’d had, the court of public opinion had ruled him guilty pretty swiftly. Kaiden didn’t know what he’d done to so royally tick off the news networks, but it seemed as far as they were concerned his case had been an open and shut one. Apparently, Zelda believed that too.
“Who told you to kill Bernstein?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Kaiden said, trying to keep the frustration from his voice. The world had all been sold a great fat lie about him and there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet, anyway.
“I saw you with Titus. Saw you help him when we were on the shuttle. Are you working for his gang?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Kaiden said, voice growing louder.
“Someone ordered you to kill Bernstein, and you’re going to tell me who it was.”
“I didn’t kill Bernstein!” Kaiden shouted it this time, then slammed his hammer into the table next to him, leaving a deep dent in its surface. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you. I’m tired of the whole damn world saying I’m some sort of criminal!” It was his turn to get angry now. “First, I get back from work to find the tortured and murdered body of my only friend. Then I get arrested and the world says I’m the one who did it.”
He strode forward, jabbing with his finger to hammer home each point. “Then I get thrown in prison and some tattooed psycho wants to kill me on general principle. And now–” He took a deep breath and felt the anger ruling his every thought. “And now I help a person out when they need it and you accuse me of being a gangster for it? I’ve never committed a crime in my life, much less murder. And hell, I saved you yesterday when I had no incentive to whatsoever. All I’ve done is be a decent person, and all I’ve gotten for it is punished.”
He paused and let out a long breath.
Zelda stared at him, as defiant as ever.
She still thinks I’m the guilty one. Just like everyone else.
He sighed.
“If you think I’m the one who killed Bernstein, you need to think again.” He paused, then said one last thing as Bernstein’s favorite phrase popped into his mind. “The obvious answer is often a distraction, you know. True answers are found when one digs deeper.”
Silence greeted his words, but the anger drained from Zelda’s eyes. Then she frowned.
“Wait, who told you that?”
“Bernstein did. Said it all the time.” Kaiden shook his head, anger fading as he thought back to happy memories of solving complex puzzles and thought games with the old man. “He never was one for obvious answers. Always suspected something more.”
“Oh my god,” Zelda said, eyebrows scrunched as a look of realization dawned across her features. “You really did know him.”
“Yeah. Pretty sure I mentioned that before.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“Definitely sure I mentioned that.”
“So, who did?”
Kaiden crossed his arms.
“And there’s the million-dollar question that, until right now, no one else but me was asking.”
“You have to tell me everything about what you saw. Did you notice anything when you found him? Did anything seem out of place? Did it look like his murderer had broken in?” She leaned in as she talked, speaking more quickly with each question.
Kaiden paused before answering.
As good as it feels to have someone believe me, something doesn’t add up. Why is she so interested in all the miniscule details?
“Why do you care? Up until now, no one’s believed me. No one’s even wanted to hear my side of the story. But you come in here, spitting mad and demanding answers. What, did you get yourself thrown in prison then press-ganged into the Warden program just to ask me why I killed Bernstein?”
For the first time since Kaiden had known her, Zelda gave something approaching a smile, then followed it with a little laugh.
“Well, pretty much. That’s about how it went.”
Wait, what? Surely she was kidding.
“You’re messing with me, right? This is some sort of elaborate joke?”
“We knew Bernstein was working on something big. Something so important he wouldn’t tell anyone what it was. But someone killed him for it. I’ve been assigned to find out who it was, and what they did with his project.”
This doesn’t make any sense. Who ‘assigned’ her to this? What project?
That couldn’t be right. Kaiden had known the man for years. Had never known exactly what he did for work, but there was no way it was something worth killing over. Was it? He’d been a smart man, sure, but mostly he’d just minded his own business and gamed. Rarely left his apartment, in fact.
And yet, he was dead. Was this really the reason why?
“Wait a minute. You said 'we.'” Kaiden’s mind was a mess of possibilities and swirling thoughts. “Who’s 'we'?”
Zelda shook her head.
“I’m not allowed to tell you that.”
“Oh, okay. No worries.”
She balked at that.
“Wait, really?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve always been a trusting per– no! Of course not.” He drew his face into a frown. “If you want me to believe some organization told you to put yourself in prison and track down Bernstein’s murderer, you’re going to have to give me more than an ambiguous ‘we.’”
Zelda sighed.
“What if I told you Bernstein was not just a friend, but a former colleague of mine?”
“That’d be a start.”
“Look, Kaiden, I–”
“My friends call me Kai.”
“Kaiden, Kai, whatever.” She shook her head. “I’m kind of on my own in here and I don’t know much about you, but I believe you were friends with Bernstein. If he trusted you, then that’s good enough for me. But if you truly were his friend, then you’d help me find his murderer. Not to mention clear your own name in the process.”
A spark of hope sprung to life in his heart.
“You have evidence that can help me?”
“Well, not yet.”
Just like that, it spluttered out.
“But I do have leads.” She nodded earnestly. “What I need is help pursuing those leads.”
“And what happens when you get your evidence? You just get to waltz out of prison?”
Zelda shrugged.
“Yeah, something like that. Look, I really can’t say much, but I can promise that if you help me find Bernstein’s murderer and whatever it wa
s he stole, your name will be cleared. You can have your life back.” She gave him a hard stare, a fierce stare, then held out her hand. “What do you say, Kai?”
Either this is legit and I’m going to help track down Bernstein’s murderer, or I’m being suckered into something I don’t understand.
She’d been nothing but cold to him since they first made eye contact, and at one point he was sure she’d been bent on seeing him dead, but for some reason, right then, Kaiden felt he could trust her. Couldn’t explain why, exactly. Maybe it was the conviction in her voice. Maybe it was simply the fact that she didn’t think he was a ruthless murderer. Whatever it was, it worked.
“Alright. You’ve convinced me.”
She smiled.
“This could be a good thing, Kai. We can prove your innocence and discover what someone was willing to kill our friend over.” Her smile faded after she spoke. “Though there’s just one problem.”
Kaiden frowned with her. Actually, now that the high of someone finally believing him was fading, there were several problems. Starting with the little issue of how they were going to conduct an entire criminal investigation, in a video game, from inside a prison. Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea.
“We have to find a third person to help us,” she said.
Or a private army of detectives…
He raised an eyebrow. “Aside from the obvious reason – that we have no idea what we’re doing – why do we need a third?”
“The squad system.”
“The what?”
She sighed.
“Honestly, did you even research this game? Never mind. Don’t answer that. Wardens are broken into squads of three to maximize their effectiveness. I expected they would have already done it by now. You and I can be in the same squad, but we’ll need a third.”
Kaiden didn’t even hesitate.
“Titus.”
“Who?”
“The guy that’s pretty much a walking wall of muscle?”
Zelda frowned.
“You’ve seen his tattoos, right? He’s a member of the King Street Gang.”
“I’m good at reading people,” Kaiden said.
He wasn’t.
“And I trust Titus. Gangster or not.”
He sort of did.
“He’s a criminal.”
“According to the rest of the world, we’re all criminals in here.”
“That’s not the point.”
Kaiden crossed his arms.
“The point is I won’t help you unless Titus is our third. He saved my life yesterday. A maniac would have wrung my neck thin as a straw if not for him. We can trust Titus, and right about now, that means a lot.”
Zelda crossed her arms as well, then bit her lower lip, thinking. Finally, she cursed and shook her head.
“Have it your way, Kai. But if this goes belly up, I’m blaming everything on you.”
“Fair enough. Now let’s go solve a murder. What do you say?” He extended a hand.
“I really hope we don’t regret this decision,” she said, giving him a firm handshake.
“We won’t.”
At least, he hoped they wouldn’t.
Chapter Eleven
“This is no longer a priority two developing situation,” Sergeant Dawson said, pacing before the assembled recruits. “We’ve got ourselves a bona fide priority one. To put it plainly, ensigns, the you-know-what has hit the fan.”
They’d been waiting in the canteen for what felt like hours with no news of what was happening until Sergeant Dawson hurried in moments ago. Now, the canteen was filled with the thrum of anxious conversation and shouted questions as every ensign tried to shout louder than those next to him.
Kaiden didn’t mind the noise, however. It provided great cover for the conversation he’d been negotiating between Titus and Zelda. She hadn’t wanted to trust Titus with all their information, but Kaiden wasn’t in the habit of keeping secrets from his friends. He had so few of each he couldn’t afford to do anything other than make full use of them.
“So you want to find whoever murdered this Bernstein guy–”
“And what they stole from him,” Zelda added.
“...and what she says they stole from him, and in the process, clear Kai’s name?” He emphasized the ‘she’ with a nod toward Zelda. She hadn’t exactly been friendly to him since Kaiden had introduced them. Titus had been more than happy to return the favor.
“That’s about the gist of it,” Kaiden said, making sure to keep his voice down.
“Hm.” Titus nodded slightly, then looked at Kaiden. “And you want me to help you?”
“We need a third we can trust.”
“Fine. I’ll be your third.”
Kaiden breathed a sigh of relief at that. He’d been legitimately concerned Titus would turn the offer down. The big man didn’t really have any incentive to go out of his way to help them.
“On one condition.”
Oh. Well, here comes the incentive…
“When we clear your name, Kai, and you get back out into the world, you have to take a message to my brother.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s no problem at all. What’s the message?”
“I need to word it right. Give me some time and I’ll get back to you. I just need you to promise you’ll get it to him.”
“I promise.”
“Then I’m in.”
“Glad to hear it!” Kaiden slapped him on the shoulder.
Party formed!
Ensigns Zelda & Titus have agreed to join your party. Party members will appear green on your minimap. A party comms channel has been created.
Achievement Unlocked!
Party Time - 25 EXP gained!
You’ve created your first party. Congratulations, it appears you have friends.
Having a party comms channel would be useful for situations like back on the Dalcinae when he got split up from Titus. For now, he didn’t open it as the three of them were close enough to speak normally.
“Tell him what you told me about the leads, Zelda,” Kaiden said. He shot a glance to the front of the room to make sure Sergeant Dawson was still being barraged with questions. “Might need to make it quick.”
Zelda hesitated a moment, still clearly unhappy with bringing Titus fully into the fold, then cleared her throat.
“We believe whoever killed Bernstein did it to take what he was working on. Odds are they’re looking to blackmail the Party with it. Whatever it is, though, it’s not a physical item.” She rapped her knuckles on the table next to them. “We think it’s an in-game item.”
Titus frowned at that.
“Why would you kill someone for a virtual item?”
“Because,” Zelda said, exasperation in her voice, “just because the item is in-game doesn’t mean it started there. This item, this file, was uploaded into Nova by Bernstein. As backward as it sounds, Nova is one of the safest places to store important files. NextGen Games has entire departments dedicated to making sure no one hacks them, and they’re such a big corporation the Party rarely challenges them.”
Now that was saying something, Kaiden knew. Ever since the war – or ‘the great test,’ as it was supposed to be called now – the Party had been the single most powerful force in the nation. No one opposed them because no one could, or had a good reason to.
The war had been caused by the worst of humanity. It’d been a civil war of zealots, terrorists, cult leaders, separationists and wannabe dictators. It had culled the weak and left only the strong, until the Party came out on top and brought peace. In the new world the aftermath had created, there wasn’t room for the sins of the past. There was only room for the Party, and the bright new future it guaranteed for everyone. That was the truth, plain and simple.
In recent years, NextGen Games had been growing in power, enough that they could make their own rules to a certain extent. But, like the Party, NextGen wielded its power responsibly. For the time being, that was enough to keep
the status quo.
“So he uploaded this file to keep it safe from the Party?” Titus asked, drawing Kaiden’s attention back to the conversation at hand.
“Yes,” Zelda said, nodding. “And more. Before Bernstein was killed, he was tortured. Likely to force him to move his Nova Online character into a PVP zone so that when he died, he could be looted.”
“PVP?” Titus asked.
Wow. He really knows nothing about gaming.
“Player versus player,” Zelda said in a hurry. “It’s any area where you can kill players. This represents nearly all areas of the game. There are only a few select areas where PVP is not enabled – major trading hubs and early starting zones, mostly. When a player dies in a PVP zone, you can loot their inventories. PVP is allowed in most of Nova, but there are safe zones for noobs, traders, casual players. Bernstein would have been careful with this item, hiding his character in a safe zone where he couldn't be attacked. He wouldn’t enter a PVP zone of his own free will.”
“But if this happened in-game, couldn’t NextGen just look up who killed him? They have circuitheads that can do that stuff.”
“That’s what I thought at first, too,” Zelda said, shaking her head. “But NextGen Games strictly adheres to a no interference policy. Players are anonymous unless they choose not to be. Not even the Party can make NextGen break that promise.”
Titus shook his head at that.
“The King Street boys really need to get in on this gaming stuff. Nobody can catch you in here.”
“Anyway,” Zelda continued, frowning only slightly at the mention of Titus’ livelihood. “The leads we have tell us the in-game assassin who killed Bernstein’s character and looted it had two distinguishing features: a nose ring, and a red streak of hair. I need to question him. He might be able to lead us to the real-world murderers, too. But even if I catch the assassin, he’d just be able to log out. That’s why I had to become a warden. With the warden-only ability ‘Shackle,’ I can–”
She stopped as a shadow fell over her face. Her eyes widened and Kaiden turned to find Sergeant Dawson standing over them.
“If I could just bother you three for a moment,” he said, voice way too calm. “We are in the middle of a system-wide priority one alert that could end with the annihilation of a planet. Now, I don’t want to intrude, but I’d appreciate it if you could find it in your hearts to pay attention!”
