For their part, the FBI agents seemed less concerned with that agreement and were looking strictly at Modus Operandi, Method and Operation. The motive was easy enough to figure out. It was the gold and a lot of it. Nor was it solely a digital replication. That enormous trophy had actual value in Metaverse currency, which in turn has real value in dollars. The treasure and the wealth it represented was significant. People killed for far less in the real world.
After making their preparations, the four teleported to the virtual city where the Voracious Soldiers had its barracks. The barracks like the rest of the sim where it and the Dead Zone existed were human normed and had reality settings that precluded people from teleporting here and there. You had to do that in teleporter booths located in different parts of the city or into a private residence. Or in this case, the team HQ, a member only area.
Human normed meant that since humans could not dissolve and reappear wherever they desired, at least not yet, nor could they there. The same physical limitations existed in-world in a Digital Adventures sim as they did in the real world. Human norming meant if it didn’t exist in reality, it didn’t exist in the sim. There were some exceptions, for example since DEVO’s don’t really exist, there would have been no need to customize the explosive bullet technology. For the sake of the storyline and in concert with it some things had to be inserted.
The four racked out in a large bunk room. Pete seemed comfortable in his battle uniform while the quiet Asian one, Robert, appeared a little uneasy. They had donned the suits so as not to cause attention among the other VS adventurers. As it was, Calum had to have a private talk with the VS executive officer since the commander was off duty. The “XO” agreed to rescind Andy’s suspension and let him have access to Victor Sierra’s forward operating base south of the Dead Zone.
Andy, like other members, had an account with the infiltration team. Meaning every bullet he fired or equipment he failed to bring back from the zone he would be charged for, balanced against the trophy haul for the mission or absent those, from his account. Andy’s status as a senior officer allowed him to use any and all assets the team owned. His position also cleared Andy into any place into the Dead Zone, including the dreaded downtown area where the greatest dangers lurked and where only the most experienced and well-equipped members dared to venture.
Unfortunately, the JLTV and G550 that both belonged to Andy lay destroyed, along with a lot of VS team equipment. While other armored vehicles were available, they lacked the Vulcan cannons, instead equipped with dual .50 caliber machine guns and a Mark-19 Grenade launcher. It didn’t matter; Andy had no intention of being downtown in the DZ when the sun set.
He chuckled. “Yeah right. I’ve told myself that how many times now?”
Andy wondered if Mia was right, his “nine-lives” were up. Mia had grown quite comfortable working, playing and living in this sim. She had a sweet gig going, flying for the various teams and had a lot of friends both in them and in the large virtual city across the bay from the Dead Zone, itself a popular Metaverse location particularly among the younger crowd. If Andy met his demise in the DZ, then he would be gone from there forever, as if he died. Although he could “resurrect” in a different team in a different zone, he would remain separated from her in that location. Since so much of the time they spent together was online, if they existed in different worlds so to speak, then they would never be together. Of course, they could meet in New Polis or some other part of the Metaverse. But so much of what they did, both for money and more so socially, revolved around the Dead Zone. Just as in real life, if one or the other died on an infiltration that was it, there was no “do over.” It was what made the stakes so high and the rewards so compelling.
The FBI Agent’s voice lured Andy from his thoughts. Without going into a lot of details, Calum indicated that while their avatars might be present in-world, both he and Wu would be in the real world chasing down some leads, including a bit of an old fashioned one.
They had gotten a “ping” from Mia’s work phone. While her personal one still pinged in Phoenix her work one was communicating with towers all the way through northern Arizona and now into Nevada. Every time a ping occurred the map was updated. A probability of what mode of transportation they were using, what route they might be on and what locations might be their destination continually updated with each new cell tower connection.
Whoever had her did not realize that she had a second phone on her. They all hoped that would continue to be the case, and that the battery would hold out. In the meantime, both Agents surreptitiously left the VS compound while their avatars remained, apparently asleep in their bunks. They were returning to the real world where both would be on the move from their headquarters in Denver and headed towards the Nevada desert to track the pings.
Andy hoped they could get there and find Mia quickly. As he watched the two avatars of the sleeping agents, his mind drifted while wondering how they were doing that so seamlessly, both being here and in the real world simultaneously. His thoughts turned to how he would deal with Haus and Graybeard when he got in-world. He planned on making life there difficult for them, something he was quite adept at.
***
Mia stirred as the steel cuff clamped on to her left ankle. She stayed still while the one whose name she learned was Les hovered over her face, gently pulling the duct tape from her mouth before moving to her wrists and cutting the plastic ties with a needle nosed plier before doing the same at her ankles.
Mia studied the man. Gaunt and the smaller of her two kidnappers, both themselves slight in build. Bowen carried maybe 120 pounds on his 5-6 frame; not much more than Mia did, but she was more muscular. She only did Nutrient for short periods of time, or the results would be what she saw in front of her.
His eyes met hers as he placed the pliers down. “There, now you can use the bathroom.” He smiled.
Mia smiled back. “Thank you, my legs hurt, could you help me up?” Mia rubbed her legs and arms where the plastic cuffs were.
Les Bowen thought of himself as a lady’s man and saw no need to be less than gallant to the petite woman even if they were going to kill her. But that was up to Haus, he wasn’t calling the shots. Bowen offered his hand to the woman who took it.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him.
Rather than grasping his outstretched right hand her right palm slid past his and up to his wrist where she latched onto it with a vice-like grip. At the same time, her left hand shot out with the speed of a striking snake to the opening of his polo shirt. Mia’s fingers reached under the shirt before they formed a tight grip at the collar edge where the buttons were.
Bowen did what most people would, what Mia hoped he would. He yanked back trying to free his arm from her grip, a grip that was surprisingly powerful from such a petite woman. But Mia wasn’t some shrinking violet. She was a Practical Defensive Arts devotee, a modern martial art, which as its name implied was for practical application. Mia practiced her skills both in-world and out.
Mia exploded upward. Using Bowen’s backward pull to help her, she yanked hard with both hands firmly latched onto the man, shooting herself up in a blast of energy from her muscular legs. Mia tucked her head and smashed the top of her skull, just above her forehead, into Bowen’s nose, fracturing it in two places as it flattened against his face. As Bowen fell back against the wall of the RV Mia continued to pull herself into him. She drove her knee into his groin, not once, not twice but three times before a mixture of blood and vomit exited him from his mouth and now deformed nose. Bowen doubled up in pain, only on his feet because she still held him by the arm and shirt.
Mia let him fall to the floor as she gathered the steel cable up that was attached to her left leg. Jumping onto Bowen’s back as the young man wretched and cried out she looped a length of the cable around his neck and yanked up.
“Where’re the keys!”
Bowen’s reddening face and upper body arched up from the floor pulled by the ca
ble around his neck. The pain, increasing through his lower abdomen by the second made him want to go back to being doubled over. Mia did not relent; she would choke him out and search his pockets afterward. In fact, she briefly considered that she would do more than choke him out to make sure he didn’t try to follow or get the other one.
Bowen with blood gushing from his nose and rapidly bluing lips thrust his right hand into his pant pocket and produced the keys, while his left cupped his smashed manhood. Mia snatched them and let him fall back to the floor in agony; her immediate concern was to get the shackle off her ankle. She ignored Bowen’s gasping interrupted by what soon turned into a vomiting spasm.
Her hands, shaking from the adrenaline as well as from being restrained the last 12 hours fought to insert the key into the padlock. Before she could get it in her whole body jerked just as she felt the two pin pricks in her back.
Falling to the floor, she looked up to see the one called Haus standing there with the Taser in his right hand.
“Try that again, and it won’t be a Taser I shoot you with.” Mia slunk back to the floor when the voltage ceased.
Bowen got to his feet, just barely. He held one hand against his crotch while wiping blood and vomit with the other.
“You fuck’n bitch!” It came out more as a cry of pain than anger, which was a big part of what the young man was feeling.
Haus glared at his subordinate. “Yeah, that’s what she made you, a fucking bitch.” Haus laughed without mirth. “Maybe now you realize this is for keeps. If you’re going to be in my Outfit, you better start acting like you got a pair, or at least like you had a pair.”
Bowen who could no longer stand, sank to the bed bent over, leaning against the top of his thighs rocking himself to ease the pain.
“Go get yourself cleaned up. She did you a favor; now you know this is real, and you better act accordingly.”
Bowen wobbled to his feet and shuffled between the older man and Mia. He gave a kick towards Mia hitting her lower left leg with an impact that was barely discernible to her but made him stumble.
Lindel shoved Bowen against the doorway. “I told you to go get cleaned up.”
“Yes, Haus.”
Lindel turned to the woman on the floor.
“This one’s on me. If you do anything that stupid again, I won’t be as nice.”
He turned and walked to the front of the RV where he sat down at a table and opened a mobile computer.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mia smirked at Bowen; she thought he looked ridiculous. Both of his eyes had gone black, and he had tissues stuck up both nostrils. The guy still could not even stand upright, and when he did, he moved with difficulty. Bowen glared back as he adjusted the bag of ice over his crotch area.
“Boss, at least leave me the Taser,” his voice strained. Bowen’s eyes fluttered for a moment from Mia to Lindel before moving back to their captive.
“Yeah right, imagine where she is going to place that after she takes it away from you,” Lindel laughed. “Stick to the plan piss-ant. Don’t go near; she gets the rear bedroom and bath, and you can have the forward one.”
“What if she gets loose from the cable?”
“Well, then you can beg for your life. What the fuck man? Can’t you do one simple thing? When I give you the word, you start moving the vehicle. If Crawley has second thoughts or does anything stupid, she will be thirty seconds from drowning. You don’t even have to do anything; the self-driving program will take care of it. He’ll get the message about how serious this is, and we shouldn’t have to go through with it. If things don’t go well, then I guess you can have your revenge anyway you like it. But a word of caution. I think she might like it rougher than you may be able to handle.” Lindel grinned at Mia and shook his head. Why can’t his flunky assistant be half as tough as she is?
“So, we good then?”
Bowen nodded.
“You follow orders, don’t be going rogue on me. Personally, I don’t care if she lives or dies, but it will make our disappearance easier if she lives, they’ll be using resources to find her instead of us. Think you can manage to carry out my instructions?”
“Yes, boss.” The young man sounded as weak and beaten as he appeared. He was beginning to hate being back in the real world. Anything that would get him out of here and away from the crazy bitch seated on the bed glaring at him he would do. The sooner, the better.
***
Lindel drove the sixty or so miles from Lake Tahoe back to Reno in the car he rented earlier. Just outside of downtown and not far from where some rundown casinos stood that at one time were elegant resorts was his destination. He marveled at the buildings, still operating casinos for the have-nots who spent any small change they could hustle out on the street.
With the advent of the Metaverse, people liked to do their gambling in-world in casinos where even if the person next to you smoked you still breathed clean air. Moreover, Metaverse casinos did not need the brick and mortar behemoths that surprisingly still survived in Vegas, but then gambling in “Sin City” had long ceased to be the primary revenue source. All those casinos, whether in-world or out could offer better odds because of the relatively small overhead that the Metaverse casinos took to run. Many people, particularly from Asia, still preferred to roll the dice with a real hand rather than a digital one. Vegas had enough to offer in the real world that it did not suffer the plight of Reno, at least in terms of gambling. The town did have a resurgence, becoming another Silicon Valley with the states low tax rate and proximity to the original one.
Passing under a dilapidated sign welcoming visitors to the “Biggest Little City In The World,” Lindel headed for a residential area not far from the similarly neglected casinos. Ten minutes later, he pulled into the driveway. Plucking the case containing his SecondSkin suit from the trunk, he made his way to a side door of the modest home where he met a twenty-something male. Lindel handed him a thick white envelope.
“No questions. I’ll call you when I’m done, hopefully no more than forty-eight hours.”
Looking in the envelope the man’s eyes went wide; the cash was triple the average amount he got for renting out his pod when he had to travel for work or in this case for the upcoming holiday.
“No worries, bro. I won’t be back till Tuesday. I can lock up remotely when you leave. There is plenty of Nutrient on board.”
Lindel nodded and followed the man down the stairs to the basement and the waiting device that would take him home.
***
The buzzing in Andy’s earpiece woke him up. He glanced at the time on the phone, it was 0530 UMT, an hour before sunrise. The call that was coming in that was causing the buzzing in his ear was from an unknown number. Actually, there was no number on the caller ID, just zeros.
Andy’s voice was groggy and slightly hoarse. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Mr. Crawley, or maybe I should refer to you as partner?”
Sitting up in his bunk, Andy blinked awake. “Who is this?” Logan was fast asleep as was Calum but Wu sat up, immediately alert.
“This is Graybeard; we spoke last night. Have you gone in-world?”
“Umm, no. I need to wait for the maintenance guys to come in here and finish fixing the windows you shot up last night,” Andy lied. “Where’s Mia?”
“Who?”
Andy tried to rein in his anger and failed. “Yeah, you know who. My girlfriend, Mia. Who else dip shit?”
Robert motioned with his hands to stay calm, Calum stirred and then dropped quietly down from his bunk and took a position next to Wu.
“Well, that is something that you should know more about than—”
“If you harm her, I swear I will hunt you down.”
“I’m only interested in the gold; it is your life that I threatened last night although I might go look up this Mia if you don’t cooperate.”
“What the fuck are you talking about Graybeard? You had your boy, Haus send me a text picture o
f her last night after you hung up.”
“Haus called you?”
“Don’t play stupid, or we’re not going to get that trophy today.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Crawley, that I am not playing stupid. As for Haus, I don’t know what his angle is in any of this, nor do I care. The Day Breakers have control of most of the city now, including the downtown district. The Crewmen no longer exist, your Vulcan saw to that, and the DEVO’s took care of most of the rest. What’s left have joined me, aside from one or two stragglers out there. So, before you agree to work with Haus, consider this. We control the city, at least in the daylight. You or this Haus need to get through us, and our AT-4’s to get to the gold and to get it out.” Graybeard lied about having any more AT-4s.
“They didn’t help you too much last time, did they?”
“Touché, Andy. Still, I don’t think you want to go against more of them, do you?”
“What do you want, Graybeard?” Andy furrowed his brow, not sure what to say; those AT-4’s would be a problem. No doubt about that.
“A partnership, as we discussed. I will split the gold with you.”
“And Mia? Why shouldn’t I just partner with Haus? Maybe I don’t care about my life anymore, only hers?”
Graybeard chuckled. “I do believe that may be the case, more reason to go in and get the gold. I let you pass after you give me half, then you meet Haus and give him what’s left, he won’t split it, Haus is not the sharing type. If you don’t take him with you, he won’t know the total amount. How long before you can get into the Dead Zone?”
“Not for a few hours. Plus, I need to finalize it with Haus.”
“I don’t need to remind you that with all the obstacles, DEVO’s traps and unknowns, you will need every minute of daylight that you can manage. I’m afraid the creatures will have no interest in helping you or any of us.”
“I don’t want to wait, but I need to know Mia is safe first. I’ll be going in with or without your cooperation, Graybeard.” Andy lied about Haus, he hadn’t made any arrangements but was now going to take every opportunity to pit Graybeard against the other.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 22
