Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

Kemushi stumbled into the clearing. Her first thought had been to return to Realm of Bushido. Now that she had escaped Am-heh, though, she realized it was the wrong choice. Wu would try to talk her out of leaving again.

  Logging out to the PanGames Menu, she considered her options. Finding her family would have to wait; she had to do something about Am-heh. No, wait. The first thing she had to do was deactivate the Hellbomb. “Put me through to Fermilab in Batavia.”

  All she had to do was recite the memorized code key. Once she did that, the device would be inert. To rearm it someone would have to manually enter a sequence on-site. From shared memory, Am-heh would know the rearming sequence as well as the trigger code, but unless he could climb out of a monitor and physically push the buttons, his ace-up-the-sleeve would be gone.

  “Unable to comply,” the faceless voice of PanGames replied. “Your PanGames account does not include access to external email or videophone communications.”

  What? She felt suddenly dizzy. “Are you telling me that all my link bed can do is log into PanGames? How is that possible? What if I wanted to go shopping or something?”

  “I'm sorry,” the voice said. “Your doctor was specific when he registered the user account for you. Perhaps he felt that unlimited access would distract you from therapy at the Enclave.”

  Of course he did. All this time he's been encouraging me to reach out and explore...and all the time holding me on a leash so he could supervise it when I did. I can go anywhere I want, as long as it is inside PanGames. She wanted to scream, to vomit, or to laugh until her head exploded. All this time she had thought she was keeping the world safe from her own handiwork, she had been locked out of access just as tightly as her former colleagues at the UE Strategic Weapons Division had. She had really outsmarted herself this time.

  Look on the bright side, she told herself. Am-heh is an intruder, so he doesn't even have a user account. His shared memory of her activation code would be useless. No, she corrected herself, after a moment's thought. He could still intimidate some other PanGames customer to send the code for him with their own email access. And again, he might be able to get into the computers at Fermilab as easily as he had invaded PanGames.

  She had to find another way. Think, Lizzie! Maybe she could talk someone into sending the stand-down code for her. But perhaps Wu's other patients had limited access as well. Could she get Wu to send it? No, she decided. He would probably interpret it as a new delusion requiring more therapy. And that, of course, was her own fault for not confiding in him all these years. Act like a patient and you get treated as one. No, she couldn't tell Wu, couldn't expect the poor man to understand that all the years he had thought he was taking care of her he had merely been hiding her.

  She would explain and apologize to Wu later. There was, she realized, one more thing she could try. It wasn't her first choice, but perhaps it was all she had left. No matter what system she was in, there was one channel of communication that ought to still work, if she could use it to get to someone who could connect her to Fermilab.

  “Get me Customer Service,” she said grimly.

  A handsome male avatar appeared before her and smiled warmly. “May I help you?”

  “Yes you can,” she growled. “Put me through to your CIO.”

  His smile remained but one eyebrow lifted. “I'm sure I can help you. Do you need to report a bug, or have you gotten stuck in a Realm transition? If it is information you need, you have only to ask. If there is a technical problem, I can open a Help desk ticket for you.”

  “None of the above. If you're human, get me your boss. If you're a program, get me a human.”

  The avatar vanished. She pushed her irritation down and forced herself to wait. Gods alone knew how many layers of drones she would have to push through.

  Another smiling face appeared. “Hello, may I help you?”

  She got right to the point. “Are you a human being? Because you can't help me if you aren't.”

  “Why not?” it said, responding to her remark. Either it was a human and he was curious...or her comment had triggered a response superseding her question.

  “I don't have time for this!” she snapped, feeling her intended patience dissolving. “You don't have time for this! Do you have the ability to connect me to someone in charge?”

  “Please remain calm ma'am,” the face said. “What seems to be the problem?”

  She took a breath and exhaled slowly, fighting for calm. “Where would you like me to begin? Your system security has been compromised. Your users are in danger from an intruder. I'm probably the only person who knows what's going on and you lot keep treating me as if I'm some brainless twit who has a petty issue with a menu!”

  The avatar began to reply but froze. A second later he vanished and another appeared. This one sported an expression of weary irritation. “I hear you have some sort of problem with another Player. Would you like me to notify a GM? I'm sure he or she can resolve–”

  “Stop,” she told him, certain from the avatar's expression that she had finally reached an actual human. “Please don't treat this as some minor user complaint. We have an extremely serious situation here. So serious that I don't even have time to explain it a hundred times. I need to talk to whoever is in charge of your computers.” Oh, damn, there goes the eyebrow again. I bet he just brought up my user account and saw I'm a mental patient.

  “If you mean our CIO,” he said, “then I must advise you that he is usually busy. His time is valuable and you can imagine how little he likes interruptions.”

  “Do you like your job?” she growled. “Look, I realize you've never seen me before. I could be anyone. I get it. Look at it this way. If I'm some crazy person he would be annoyed if you put me through, but he wouldn't fire you for it. On the other hand, if I'm not crazy, and the situation is as bad as I believe, and the shit hits the fan, and I could have warned him but you didn't let me, and he finds out that you could have prevented it by putting me through to him, then I doubt very much that you'll have a job tomorrow.”

  He frowned. “I can't just say you want to talk to him. If you could tell me what this is about, then maybe–”

  “You have it backwards,” she informed him. “He wants to talk to me. He just doesn't know it yet. Tell him...tell him it's about the Am-heh situation. If that doesn't get his attention, then tell him it's about the users who got eaten. Unless he's asleep at the switch, he knows about them by now.”

  The avatar vanished, leaving her floating in the Customer Service room. Damn damn damn. You pushed a little too hard, Lizzie.....

  A window opened in front of her in the room space. She saw the interior of an office, looking a little too cluttered to be virtual. In front of her was a desk; the man sitting in it looked old enough to be her father, and maybe older. Beneath a shock of fading blonde hair she saw alert blue eyes in a face that badly needed a shave and twelve hours of sleep.

  He got right to the point. “All right, you have my attention. I'm Farker, CIO for PanGames. What do you know about Am-heh, Ms. Soto?”

  She was momentarily confused, then realized that Wu would have registered her under a false name for patient confidentiality. “My real name is Elizabeth Kaplan,” she told him. “What do I know about Am-heh? Probably a lot more than you, at the moment.” She thought for a second. “In fact,” she added, “I doubt that you know enough about him to even believe what I know about him.”

  “Try me,” he grunted. “You'd be surprised what I can believe today.”

  “You probably think he's a program gone buggy,” she said. “He's not. I realize this will sound crazy, but he's a ghost in your machine. Literally. Your computer is haunted.”

  Farker smiled grimly. “A couple of days ago that would have sounded crazy,” he said. “But a lot can happen in a couple of days.”

  “It gets worse,” she told him. He's from a group of extraterrestrials who have been in contact with humans for thousands of years. They've been with us sin
ce the Pharaohs.”

  “That would explain why he got mythologized into a god of the Egyptian underworld,” Farker commented. “But what is he doing in my computer?”

  “There's another faction,” she said. “He's here do do battle with someone from the other side. I don't know who his opponent is, but apparently what they're fighting over is who gets to be our overlords. Personally, I'm rooting for the other side.”

  “How do you know all this?” he asked.

  “Because I shared memories with him.” She explained briefly.

  He didn't seem to be listening. Something was distracting him. “Did you say your name was Kaplan?” he asked.

  “Yes. Elizabeth Kaplan. Why?”

  “Are you related to Darla Kaplan?

  “I have a daughter named Darla,” she said. “She was named after my grandmother. It's not a common name nowadays. Why, do you know her?”

  “The God of Coincidences is working overtime this week,” he remarked. “Your daughter is a Player in PanGames, and she's met Am-heh, too. In fact, she's how I found out about him. She's working with us to try to get rid of him. Hasn't she told you all this?”

  Tsuneo was right, she thought. They survived! Oh, Manny, my love, will you ever forgive me? She wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. So many wasted years.

  “No, I got separated from her years ago.” At his look of surprise, she added “It's a long story for another time. Do you know where I can find her?”

  He smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do. She's with Am-heh's opponent. Shall I have the system teleport you to her?”

  “Yes,” she said. “No, wait...I need to do something first. Can you send an email to Fermilab for me?”

  “The museum in Batavia? Do you work there?”

  “I used to,” she said. “And I forgot to turn something off.”

  Chapter 63: Farker: even Orpheus didn't succeed