Cold War Rune: A Virtual Reality novel (Rune Universe Book 2)

by Hugo Huesca

  “Great, Beard and I will—”

  “Gabrijel is in Panarin’s team,” said Derry. “And Panarin won’t be relinquishing him to my team.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Beard put a hand on my shoulder (which was a bit difficult given the size difference) and shook his head.

  “It’s fine, Cole. I want to keep an eye on the old bastard anyway. I’ll tell Mai to cover your back.”

  Mai heard her name mentioned and walked awkwardly to our corner of the room. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll brief her and Panarin’s team,” said Derry. “You should connect to your real account and get ready for a surveillance stint.”

  “Thanks for telling me to do what I was going to do anyway,” I muttered under my breath. The log-out option appeared before my eyes not one second after I called for it. Before activating it, I looked at Beard.

  “Good luck, man.”

  “Happy hunting, Cole.” His eyes were heavy with worry.

  I lifted the mindjack off my head and found myself face to face with Derry’s frowning face.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “I just wanted to make sure you understand the dangers involved here,” he told me. “In case you are thinking of running your mouth to any of your friends.”

  “I barely survived the ambush,” I pointed out. “I think I know the danger, Derry.”

  And I was already going to talk to my friends about this, whether he wanted it or not. Mainly because I suspected they were going to get involved anyway, so I may as well give them a heads-up.

  “You sure?” he asked. His blind eye glinted strangely in the light and made me look away. “Even if it puts your girlfriend’s life in danger?”

  “What are you talking about?” My blood instantly became to pump hotter. “Is there something about her you haven’t told me?”

  “We both know she’s playing at something,” he told me. “I read her file too, you know. All the kids involved in the Rune Event have nice, fat dossiers in Caputi’s office.”

  “So what?”

  “So, the relationship between you two isn’t exactly a secret. Whatever she’s doing in Dervaux territory—assuming she hasn’t actually switched sides—”

  “She hasn’t.”

  “—whatever she’s doing, you raise too much of a ruckus and it will get her in the spotlight,” he told me. “Is that what you want?”

  He was playing me and we both knew it, but it was working nonetheless. It didn’t help that I knew nothing of Irene’s plans. What was she hoping to accomplish spending time with those two monsters?

  And what do they want with her anyway?

  Derry’s eyes met once more with mine. “Unlike you,” he said, “I know what I’m doing. So follow my commands to the letter and she may end up alive after all this is over.”

  “That’s if you don’t decide to shoot us again.”

  “Right.” He rolled his eyes and put on his own mindjack. “Now, back to work, Dorsett. The night is young. There’s coffee on that pot over there.”

  I had to swallow my indignation as I fidgeted with the old mindjack’s settings to import my normal Rune’s account inside it. It was a surprisingly annoying process for something that developers should have already streamlined.

  He’s got me pretty good, I thought as I eyed the former CIA director. His body was slumped in the chair and his hands rested on the table with fingers interlocked. Like a grandpa trying his grandson’s new game. The asshole.

  Well, I had plans of my own. Find out what mess Irene had gotten into. Get her out. Then mess that Prophet’s—Keles’—plans.

  I donned the mindjack and this time I appeared wearing my normal skin, on my favorite ship.

  The elegant, campy, and vaguely retro interior clashed so hard with the dumpster that was Derry’s hideout that I had to smile. It felt good to be back.

  “Master Cole,” Francis greeted me a second after I logged in. “It’s good to see you—uh, there’s something different about you.”

  His voice was surprisingly hurt. “Have you been using another account lately? Are you… are you seeing another ship’s AI behind my back?”

  Power-armored fist, meet power-armored forehead. “Dude.”

  “Was it something I did…?”

  I put my friend on the level. Took me a while to explain it all to him. “You’re risking too much. There’s no re-spawning in that other world. You’re playing with the only life you have.”

  “There’s really no other option,” I told him. “Keles didn’t strike me as someone who gives up easily. How long until he tries to kidnap my family or my friends to get at me?”

  Just like he could do easily with Irene, I thought.

  Which meant I had to find her.

  “Are you sure they’re all safe?” asked Francis. “Master Rylena hasn’t visited our universe much, just a couple logins in the middle of the night.”

  Actually, I hadn’t talked to Walpurgis and Van in a while. Since yesterday… And if they hadn’t come online, they hadn’t received my message…

  Van and Mom must think I’m dead, I thought.

  Worse yet, they may be in danger. Derry had said that Keles had infiltrated the FBI and that was how he knew of the plans to investigate the Church of the Intangible God.

  What if he knew of the safe house?

  If he did, a voice of reason tried to yell over my panicking mind, he would’ve just stormed in and captured you with no problem.

  Still, to risk them both for an “if he did…”

  “Have Spark Bandit or Walpurgis logged in since the last time I was here?”

  I had been out all since yesterday’s night. If Van had been here, it probably meant she was okay.

  “No, Master Cole,” Francis said with a twinge of worry in his voice. “Neither of them have.”

  I sighed and let my hands rest on the armrests of my pilot chair. “Please, if they do, establish an instant comm-link with them. Use translight if you have to, and tell them all I’ve told you.”

  “I’m sure Master Walpurgis won’t believe the part about the ancient extraterrestrial technology unless you tell her yourself,” Francis said. “She’ll probably think I’m just trying to mess with her.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I told him. “I barely believe it myself.”

  I steeled myself and forced my mind to put all the worries aside. If I wanted to find Irene, I had to work together with John Derry. This meant finding that secret base.

  “Francis, where are we parked?”

  “You logged out close to the derelict ship that held Master Walpurgis,” Francis said. “We have her fighter ship in the Teddy’s bay, actually.”

  That’s good news! If she had logged out a bit after I did, she would appear inside the Teddy. It would save us a lot of time.

  “Good to know. I’m going to meet with some new friends back on Argus Station, so set us on a course to Earth.”

  For an infinite exploration game, we sure ended up going back to our home planet a lot.

  I guess there’s nothing like home.

  “I love making new friends,” said Francis.

  “Yeah… just in case, buddy, if I say ‘cheesecake’ while we’re in the Teddy, it means to flush all our new friends out and keep the old ones in.”

  “I love that even more,” said Francis cheerfully.

  I steeled myself in the pilot’s chair for the series of jumps that made Teddy soar impossible distances through space. In the real world, I could see Derry deeply focused in his own mindjack.

  I could sucker punch him right now, I thought despite myself. He’d never see it coming…

  But we were on the same team. For now.

  The Teddy jumped and the sensation of my digital stomach churning its contents around made me forget about Derry.

  The trip to Argus went by without any trouble. By this point, it was one of our routine trips.

  “Mind handling the hangar bureaucra
cy?” I asked Francis while the ship spun lazily into its landing pad. “I suppose I’ll need to disguise my tags before going out.”

  “I handle them anyway,” said Francis. “Master Rylena left some of her undercover tags in the storage, check them out.”

  In Rune, seeing the stats of a character was something trivial. As long as you had a visor with the adequate tech, you could view anyone’s name and profession, at the very least. More expensive visors let you have a glimpse of their stats, and you had to be a Battlemind to see anything further.

  I walked to the storage and inspected the weapon racks with a doubtful gaze. A part of me (a big part) wanted to carry one of Beard’s missile launchers around, just to be sure no one would give me any shit. On the other hand, calling attention to myself like that would be a terrible idea.

  Nothing to it, I thought. I grabbed a couple of plasma grenades and an EMP stick, nothing that would appear out of place in the demilitarized Station. They’d have to be enough. Violence may be an efficient solution to most problems, but it wasn’t the only one.

  Next, I opened one tiny compartment behind one of Walpurgis’ rifles. It was filled with data-stacks, the futuristic version of my scrips. The software inside each of them would let me disguise my name and level to anyone that wasn’t a high-level Battlemind or a hacker. The latter would need to know I was trying to disguise myself before attempting anything, so I had another incentive to keep quiet.

  I picked up one of the chips at random and loaded it into my inventory. It transformed into brilliant bits of data and then my visor announced the software was operative.

  “Alright, Francis, I’m heading out,” I told my friend. “Keep the engine running, please.”

  “Got it, Master Cole. Happy hunting.”

  The Argus Station felt very different from the ground than from the interior of my ship. The hangars were ship-sized, of course, so walking around felt like being an ant taking a tour of a museum. All around me, players from every place of the world went in different directions in the chaotic manner of all main MMO cities. Quest logs and Inventory screens floated everywhere and their faint light gave the metal of the Station a phantom-like feel.

  Soon we won’t be able to fit in here, I told myself. I could see the Terran Federation working on expanding the bay, a small army of engineers (both NPC and players) floating around in open space with their exo-armors—devouring and stripping the Station so they could install new modules. As it was, it was like watching a plague of metallic locust slowly eat their way around the base.

  I waded through a sea of low-level players in their gray overalls and made my way out of the hangars. The player population lessened the more I advanced. Most of the guys in here were doing one Quest or another, or working for the Federation to make some cash.

  Finally, I arrived in a secluded spot near a maintenance chute. A bunch of spider-like drones scurried past me in the pipes above. Other than that, the corridor was empty.

  “I’m at the Station,” I told Derry in the real world. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m trying to get passage on the ferry,” he said coarsely. “The flights are saturated, though.”

  He’s still in the starting area, I realized. The starting zone was an expansive research facility on Earth, where a short tutorial let players get their bearings and familiarize themselves with the game. It included a bulky Earth-to-Station fleet of transport ships to get the new players into Argus as soon as they wanted.

  If the Station hangars were already filled to the brim, I didn’t dare to imagine how the research facility was faring at the moment.

  “That could take a while,” I told him. “I’ll start looking around on my own, then.”

  “Do you even know where to begin?”

  “It should be easier than booking a passage on your ferry.”

  The ex-Director snorted. “Better wait for Mai. I think she’s currently parking her ship.”

  Parking… It was like talking to a guy who had spent the last forty years in a coma.

  “Tell her to meet me near the Command Center. Don’t worry, she’ll know where to go.”

  Derry grumbled something and I set route to the Command Center. The Station was big enough to warrant the use of magnetized trains for the NPCs to move around the different parts of it, so I walked to a nearby station. The trains were more like a constant stream of bullet-shaped wagons coming and going from a circuit inside the Argus at constant intervals, all of the process automated.

  The NPC-to-player ratio shifted the deeper I delved into Argus. It was unsettling, watching all the soldiers, scientists, and politicians going around their business like they were real. They weren’t—but you could forget that easily.

  I sat on the back of the magnetized train and watched how a red-headed scientist stumbled and dropped his coffee to the ground. He cursed and tried to get the brown stain out of his coat and only managed to stain it further. One low-ranked soldier near him saw it and had to stifle his laughter.

  Those two… If I followed the scientist around through his day I’d see him report to his boss, walk around a malfunctioning machine, work on his pet project… When did it stop? Did he have a family waiting for him in the crew’s quarters? If I asked him who his parents were and then flew to Earth right now, would they be there, watering the garden of their summer house?

  I called them NPCs, but sometimes I had to wonder. I had no way of knowing what was going on in anyone’s heads but mine…

  The scientist sat opposite the soldier as the bullet-wagon drove me towards my own personal Quest.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The General

  The Command Center of the Argus wasn’t much like a ship’s cabin, even if that was the direct comparison. Instead of cramped corridors with pipes pumping coolant, the Center was a series of interconnected chambers and areas designed for the Terran Federation officers and other high-ranking NPCs. Most of the players here were veterans.

  I walked out of the bullet-wagon and into a miniaturized customs. Three drones stood by three metallic arch while the NPCs—and no more than two or three players—were scanned over and over again for any irregularities. Military-grade androids stood by the walls, trying to appear friendly and failing completely.

  Before I got anywhere near the drone, I disabled Rylena’s fake tags. It wouldn’t be smart to risk it with the TF, and they employed Diamond Battleminds of their own anyway.

  “Welcome to the Command Center, Cole Picard,” an electronic voice greeted when it was my turn to walk into the scanners. “As you know, the regulations of Argus Space Station require you to leave all weaponry in your system to the care of Argus’ security. Meaning, this entity. I’m compelled to add the usual warning: failure to comply with security protocols will be accompanied by an immediate and abrasive response. Do you understand these terms?”

  “Drop all my weapons unless I want to get atomized,” I told him as I unloaded my inventory into a broad screen next to the drone. As far as I knew, Command Center was secure. If someone came at me with a blaster, it would be because I did something first.

  “That is a lot of plasma grenades,” the drone pointed out as my loadout was digitized into his storage.

  “Some people like to dress up before going out, I like this better.”

  The drone managed to get its stiff frame to shrug. “Try not to get blown up in the hangars when you get out of here, okay? My cousin works in maintenance, and he can barely get weekends off to change his oil.”

  “Uh. Sure, bud.”

  The scanners showered me with god-knows-how-many invisible lasers. It almost made me feel like I was back in the safe house. Thinking about the apartment complex reminded me of Van and Mom.

  You two better be okay.

  A white plastic door opened after the scanners were sure I wasn’t hiding a bomb in my abdomen or something of the sort. It wasn’t that crazy a precaution: If players of a game knew something could be destroyed, but it wasn’
t supposed to, they’d try to do it; Rune was no exemption.

  It was the reason the Teddy had to go around flying invisible, after all.

  If the Argus’ Hangar was a sea of chaos, its Command Center was warm, professional, and well-lit. It was the third-biggest area of Argus, the first being the engine room and the second being the hangars. The atmosphere was more Star Trek than Alien, with comfy cushions with crystal tables and gardens to the side. It had a private cafeteria, its own entertainment systems, and a VIP section of apartments exclusive to high-ranked NPCs and rich players. It was a tiny city, separate from the rest of the Station.

  Living here was a symbol of status and power and even end-game players like myself had to struggle to secure a spot. Beard used to be a merchant, so he could’ve afforded it if he didn’t lose almost as much as he made playing in the casinos. Walpurgis spent all her money on weapons, so she was out. Rylena could’ve lived here too if she had joined the Paladin Defense Force.

  I was perfectly happy flying around with Teddy and Francis, though. Burning the snout of a t-rex was far more interesting than hanging around the space-aristocracy.

  I should look for Mai, I thought while I walked through the artificial gardens. A virtual sun shone lazily in the virtual blue sky of the Center’s dome, making the temperature that of the middle of summer. Most of the people around me wore expensive suits and dresses, not power-armor.

  The prospect of feeling the fake sun on my skin almost made me want to get out of my own armor, but I dismissed the idea. With my helmet on, someone would have to at least look at me to recognize me.

  “Cole Picard!” a man’s voice came behind me. “The man of the moment! It has been a long time, old chap.”

  What.

  I turned around, not sure if I should get ready to power-punch my way out of danger. Although instead of some CIL cultist about to jump me, I found myself face-to-face with the old General Jenkins.

  “Oh, good to see you, General. How’s your dog doing?”

  General Jenkins was a tall man that appeared to be in his eighties (no idea how old he really was), with white and gray hair cut in the Federation’s military fashion. He wore a white Navy uniform and his chest was almost completely covered in medals.