Owl and the Electric Samurai

by Kristi Charish

  Maybe. The treasure door swung open as the last locking mechanism clicked into place. I made my avatar hang back while Carpe cast light in the room.

  Gold, ceramics, jewels . . . a decent treasure horde from the piles stacked against the wall. I even picked up a couple magic items mixed in.

  No trap either. There ought to be some kind of challenge. “Okay, now I’m just plain weirded out.”

  “Maybe the World Quest designers really are losing their touch. Or maybe they just called this dungeon in?”

  That struck me as the least-likely scenario. Still, we’d come this far, and it was only Level 18. We could handle it, even if I set off some hidden magic trap that brought a monster in.

  Which reminded me. “Speaking about spells and traps, you still ­haven’t answered my question about the spell book.”

  Carpe opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t get the chance.

  The door slammed shut behind us. It had been a magical trap. Shit.

  “Took you two assholes long enough” came a voice I recognized, heavy with a Texas drawl.

  Both of us spun our avatars around until they were facing the back wall.

  None other than Michigan and Texas—or their avatars—were leaning against the stone wall.

  “You!” I said. Out of the two of them, I preferred dealing with Michigan. He was less abrasive than Texas—or Frank, as I’d recently found out. Of the two of them though, Frank usually spoke first.

  “You just can’t take no for an answer, can you, Hiboux?” His avatar’s face might have been neutral, but his voice sure wasn’t. “You want to tell us why the hell the IAA has every band of mercenaries on the planet looking for us?”

  “Funny, I was kind of hoping you boys might be able to shed some light on that one for me.”

  “Well, sometimes you ask and someone decides to help you out. The rest of the time they tell you to fuck off and mind your own business. Kind of like I’m about to tell you to do—” Texas said.

  “They know you’re in Shangri-La,” I interrupted.

  Texas fell silent, and Michigan spoke up. “What else?” he asked.

  I fished Neil’s research journal, the one I’d found in Nepal, from under my other notes and held it open to the page coded with human magic. “Enough that I figure finding the city is just a bonus for them. I think they want whoever figured out how to do this.”

  I could see Carpe frowning at the screen. “What is that?” he asked.

  Michigan answered for him. “You’ve got five minutes before I nuke both your characters from the game. Forever.”

  Great. Five minutes was all I needed.

  11

  THIEVES LIKE US

  An hour later

  Still trapped with Texas and Michigan in the World Quest pit of despair

  Okay, maybe five minutes was not all I needed. Especially when one of the people I was talking to was as stubborn as Texas.

  “You know what I think?” Texas said, his voice screaming loud and clear across my headset. “I think you want them to find us. That this is all just some giant treasure hunt to you—one big excuse to hunt down Shangri-La.”

  “What I’m trying to do is stop them—” I heard an electrical snap across my headset. “Hey, asshole, what the hell happened to my audio?” I said, but the only place my voice sounded was around my room.

  “How? By leading the fucking pack?” Texas continued.

  Son of a bitch, he’d cut my mic output. No way was I letting them have an argument with me when I couldn’t argue back.

  Carpe, get my mic back on, I messaged.

  “We’ve got your messages too, you know. We run the game, remember?”

  I heard my mic click back on; apparently I was allowed to speak again. “I’ve been trying to find you because I don’t want the IAA to win. Call me sentimental, but I’d rather not see anyone else subjected to their personal brand of screwing people over.”

  “And I’m guessing that the IAA offering you a pardon makes no never mind to you?” Texas said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Why did everyone always assume the worst of me? “Been there, done that. They fuck you over. The end.”

  “Look at it from our perspective, Owl,” Michigan piped up again. “Even if your intentions were good, all you’ve done is lead them closer.”

  “And you keep underestimating them. If I’d left them to their own devices, one of them would have stumbled onto your hiding spot and you’d have been none the wiser. And if you haven’t noticed, the mercenaries they’ve brought in are serious—as in guns and explosives serious.”

  Michigan and Texas went silent. The fact that the World Quest avatars had the best graphics in the game made it look as if Texas was glaring at me. Considering how well we got along, he probably was.

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t have time to convince them . . .

  Texas sighed. “All right, say we believe you—big fucking if; what do you plan on doing about it? Let me guess, we just let you stroll into our hideout.”

  I made a face. “No, asshole, you can keep your fucking hiding place.”

  “Everyone calm down,”Michigan said before Texas could add insult to injury. “Hypothetically, what is it you’re proposing?”

  “Okay, the first step in dealing with the IAA in my opinion is to screw them where it hurts—”

  Texas snickered. I ignored him.

  “In this case, figure out whatever the hell it is they’re after and why now. I have the first part of that equation. I was really hoping you two could shed light on the why now—beyond the fact that they want magic they can use.”

  “How about you shining a giant floodlight on the game?” Texas said.

  The more I’d run it over in my head, the more I wasn’t buying it. Me turning up artifacts couldn’t be the whole story. I was a pain in their ass, but even I didn’t have those kinds of delusions of grandeur.

  There was a pause on the line. Carpe was keeping oddly silent.

  “What?” When there wasn’t an immediate answer, I was certain. “What are you two not telling me?”

  I heard Michigan sigh. “We were hoping you knew something on the IAA’s motives.” His avatar even took on a reticent expression. “To be honest, we were worried. Well, we kind of assumed—”

  Texas answered. “What he’s trying to say is that we figured you wanted to get your grubby hands into Shangri-La and were orchestrating this whole fiasco.”

  “Oh, come on. Seriously? I am not that much of an asshole.” Petty thievery, maybe, but break into Shangri-La? I’d thought about it, fantasized in my dreams a couple times, but even I have lines. “Besides, I wouldn’t know where to look. And you can be damn sure I sure wouldn’t get the IAA involved. Do I look that stupid? Don’t answer that, Texas,” I added as one of them cleared their throat. “They came to me—”

  “And offered you a deal.”

  “Breaking into my apartment to threaten me, then opening a bounty on World Quest is not a deal. Worse, now they know I’m not playing ball, so they’ve offered me up to the mercenaries. And no,” I said, pointing at the camera, “you can’t offer me to the mercenaries to get your own necks out of trouble,” I added.

  I waited, a prickly feeling like static crawling over my skin as their CGI avatars appeared to converse. It was like a flashback from when I’d had a fever and had been convinced I was in the game. I pushed the sensation aside. I was just watching a game with very good graphics and having an LSD-like flashback from the curse . . . probably happened all the time.

  “They’re not above making a show of things to set an example,” Texas said, but without his usual bluster. “I’ve seen it before; remember the Aztec dig back in 2005?”

  “They let them go free after a couple weeks in jail, said it was all one big mistake,” I said as my memor
y jogged. A couple of grad students on a Mexico dig had been caught telling supernatural tales to impress coeds on spring break. A couple kilos of cocaine had ended up in their luggage.

  Texas snorted. “Yeah, funny how they never told that to the drug lords the IAA lifted the cocaine from in the first place. They still don’t get a good night’s sleep.”

  “I think we should tell her,” Michigan said.

  “Why? So she can tell the mercenaries?”

  I banged my head on the desk. “I already told you I’m not working with the mercenaries. Tell them, Carpe.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean you can’t?”

  “I mean I don’t think she’s working with the mercenaries. They’re chasing her too—but it’s not like I know for certain.”

  “Carpe, you’re a lousy World Quest partner,” I said, then turned my attention back to the World Quest dynamic duo. “Okay, ignore the part about not being certain. You heard him, and you like him, and he doesn’t think I’m dirty. That’s got to count for something?”

  Texas’s avatar narrowed his eyes and glared at me. “What is that thing I keep hearing about you? Something about a brother standing in a Mexican whorehouse?”

  I swore. I was blaming Benji for that one. “Look, will you stop it with the insults? I’m trying to help, not lead you to the mercenary slaughter.”

  Michigan piped up. “No offense, Owl, but intentions aside, you kind of have a reputation.”

  “He’s got a point,” Carpe said.

  “Carpe—stop helping. And what happened to me saving the world twice? From an army of the living dead and getting you that stupid book.”

  “Okay, I had a pretty big hand in guiding you toward the book—but yeah, if you consider that three months ago an army of corpses flooded L.A., she kind of stopped it.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Thanks for that resounding endorsement. Really gets me right here,” I said, slapping my chest over my heart.

  “Hey, I’m trying to help. I’m not like you; I won’t corrupt my own morals to do the right thing.”

  The audio feed snapped. “How the hell are you two one of the best teams in World Quest?” Texas said. “Jesus, it’s like listening to a couple of three-years-olds. Fucking unbelievable. I’m starting to think we should say to hell with the game and take the whole thing down.” There was a sigh. “All right, I’ve heard enough. You two are both in my asshole books.”

  “Me?” Carpe piped up. “What did I do?”

  “You threw your teammate under the fucking bus. Who does that?” Texas said.

  “Have you met her?”

  Oh, for the love of— “Go to hell, Carpe.”

  Texas snorted. “I’m putting an end to this twisted three-ring circus now. Owl, you and your fucking elf can take your IAA shit storm and—”

  “Wait.”

  We all went silent as Michigan spoke up. “It’s because they found out we’re in Shangri-La. They weren’t certain before, but somehow they got confirmation. That’s what started this new hunt.”

  That wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I’d assumed the IAA had known they were in Shangri-La. I mean, that was where the clues had led. “How . . . who told them?” I asked.

  “You’re my first choice.”

  “Frank—enough.” Michigan let out a breath. “We know you didn’t tell them. For the most part the last four years we got lucky. We weren’t exactly high up on the food chain.”

  Texas jumped in. “They knew it was a possibility we’d found it, but I don’t think any of them really believed we could find it—or any trace of it.”

  “In the last few weeks that changed. At first we thought it was one of you two figuring out that if we had it on the World Quest map, it had to be real. But then the time line doesn’t work out,” Michigan said.

  “You’re not the first treasure hunter they’ve gone after in the last few months. I don’t think you even made their list of first choices.”

  “Let me guess, I trash just as many sites as I don’t?” I said. Captain picked that moment to jump up from his nap, scattering my papers and letting out a startled chirp. I caught most of them before they cascaded off the desk, then shoved Captain off them before he could do any more damage.

  “No, more than everyone knows the IAA fucked you over pretty spectacularly and even they’re not stupid enough to go chasing rattlesnakes,” Texas said.

  “Fascinating character assassination aside, that still doesn’t answer the why NOW—” The last part I had to shout because Captain decided to let out another long meow.

  “What is that?” Michigan asked.

  “My cat,” I said, and scrambled to grab a glass he knocked over before it rolled off the desk. Captain hopped to the floor and slinked for the door.

  “My God; not only are you loud and obnoxious but your animal is too?” Texas said.

  As if in answer, Captain let out another wail. I frowned. He was crouching by the door, alert, his tail twitching rapidly and his ears back.

  A cold chill hit me. My cat didn’t do that unless there was something wrong. Like vampire or Naga wrong . . .

  “Alix?” Carpe said, sounding hesitant. He’d met my cat.

  I opened my mouth to say something but was cut off by a muffled bang in the hall, followed not by yells but by a deafening silence.

  “Hold on,” I said, and headed for the door, where Captain was huddled, growling. I peeked through the fisheye. A heavy white smoke filled the bottom third of the hall.

  “Shit.” I pulled out my cell and texted Rynn. Rynn? I texted into my phone. Any idea what’s going on in the hall outside our suite? I really hoped that was some kind of security exercise, because the alternative . . .

  An alarm sounded. Loud and piercing, not unlike a fire alarm. The dreams I had of an impromptu security exercise faded like most of my half-baked, hopeful wishes.

  “What’s going on?” Carpe said, a hesitant tone in his voice.

  The heavy smoke was filtering under the door now. I tried to pull Captain away while I scrambled through my bag for my gas mask, but it was no use—he was back growling at the smoke coming under the door. Damn cat. “Hey, Carpe—you still have access to the Japanese Circus security systems?” I said.

  “On it already.”

  If anyone could hack into the Japanese Circus security systems. . . . I turned my attention back to Michigan and Texas. “Look, guys, I hate to cut our conversation short—”

  “Alix, I’ve got mercenaries in the Japanese Circus. They’re on your floor,” Carpe interrupted, his voice not panicked exactly but more animated than it had been a moment before.

  “We’ll be in touch,” Michigan said.

  “In the meantime, try not to burn the world down,” Texas added before their audio feed snapped off. I slid my gas mask on.

  There was a banging at the door.

  “Alix?” came Carpe’s voice across my headset. “Just getting into the cameras now. You’ve got a group of mercenaries outside your door.”

  Fantastic. “How many?” I said, lowering my voice as another muffled bang sounded right outside my door. I checked my phone, but still nothing from Rynn.

  “Best guess, four, but it could be more. They’ve flooded the entire floor with smoke, and it’s running havoc with the cameras and sensors.”

  Damn it. I glanced over to where Captain had wedged himself under a table by the door, as if waiting to pounce on whoever might be entering his territory.

  Great. Now he was taking affront to non-supernaturals. So much for socialization. My cat was going to get himself killed.

  And me with no weapons that would work on humans besides a metal chair. I grabbed Captain and pushed my desk over, forming a barricade before settling in behind it. He let out a growl of disapproval but didn’t launch an outright attack o
n my hands. I took that as a win.

  “Quiet,” I whispered at him and did my best to tune into the mercenaries behind the door.

  It was faint, but they were talking in Spanish, if the “para” and “silencio” were any indication. Hunh. Not the Zebras. I didn’t think the South Africans would be stupid enough to break radio silence; they hadn’t during any of our previous encounters.

  If they weren’t bright enough to keep their conversation down, maybe we’d get lucky with radio. “Carpe, are you picking up any of their conversation?” I whispered.

  “My Spanish is rusty, but something about a door?”

  I heard the unwrapping of something, and then what I thought was “get back” mumbled in Spanish.

  Shit. I scrambled for the couch and grabbed a couple of pillows to press against our ears before diving back behind the overturned desk. I noticed the journals—Jebe’s and Neil’s. I grabbed them, shoving them inside my belt.

  No sooner had I managed to get Captain under a pillow than an explosion rocked the room.

  Even though I’d been prepared for it, I was dazed. It took my ears and head a few seconds to stop ringing. When I did take the pillow off, I wasn’t alone. There was a barrel of a military-grade rifle pointed in my face over the desk—no, make that two of them—held by two men dressed in black paramilitary gear and wearing gas masks that rivaled mine.

  I swallowed and managed to restrain Captain before he could launch himself at anyone holding a gun. Two more men moved into the room after hand signals from the one on my left, and I thought I caught a fifth taking up point in the hall by the door. It was hard to tell with the smoke.

  “Hey? Alix?” came Carpe’s voice in my headset.

  I ignored him, keeping my eyes on the mercenaries.

  They were all wearing masks. The one on my left, pointing the gun at me—the same one who had signaled the others and who, I reasoned, had to be in charge—motioned me to stand up with the barrel of his gun. I started to rise, slowly, buying myself time to think. He jabbed the barrel into my chest. “All right, all right, I get the idea,” I said as I stood, still gripping Captain under my arm, much to his chagrin. Tough. If I got the chance to make a run for it, the last thing I needed was a loose cat behind enemy lines.