You best hurry, Bishop, your friends do not have much time.
He urged Godfrey on faster and they finally hit level ground and another door. “Open it.”
Godfrey cursed, but Bishop pressed the blade harder against his neck and the NPC complied. “You will regret doing this. You will be the death of us all,” he warned.
With the door opened, he shoved Godfrey inside and searched for the Staff. At the back of the room, hanging as if by invisible strings, was the Staff of Kings. The dark obsidian steel glinted in the torchlight that surrounded it. The top was encrusted with emeralds and intricately designed. Bishop squinted his eyes at it and faintly caught the lines of code coursing through it.
“The fail-safe,” he whispered.
“What nonsense are you muttering now?”
“Never you mind. Grab it.”
Godfrey crossed the vault filled to the brim with treasures of gold and silver, and grabbed the Staff from the wall. Nothing spectacular happened and Bishop sighed in relief. He expected a booby trap of some kind, but there wasn’t one. Godfrey’s eyes grew calculated and he glanced passed Bishop towards the door, but he was ahead of him. In a blur of speed, he nocked and fired a Stunning Blow, keeping the king in the vault and out of the way.
“Sorry,” Bishop whispered as he reached out and took the Staff. Power thrummed through his body as he held it, but it was more than that.
When he blinked and stared around the room, he saw the coding of the game, of what created this room and everything in it. The weight of Dennis’ creation crashed around him and he had to steady himself before he managed to climb the stairs again to the throne room. The guards moved towards him, but he waved the staff and they froze, just as he willed them to.
Bring it to me.
Bishop hurried out of the castle and to the courtyard where the shadow was now halfway up the heroes’ bodies. “I have it! Now let them go!”
“Bishop, you can’t!” Calista begged, but winced as the shadow neared her shoulders.
Yes, you can. Bring it to me. You know the way.
Bishop’s thoughts warred with what was the right thing to do. If he handed it over, his friends would be freed for now, but Valen would be an even worse threat. Unless he stopped her now…unless he controlled her. She was part of the game, too, wasn’t she?
Hoisting the Staff overhead, he cried, “Valenastrious! I command you to appear!”
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Jimmy hissed.
He ignored his friend and repeated the command. The Staff hummed at his words and a loud pop made him turn. Valenastrious stood before him, writhed in green flames, glaring furiously.
“How dare you summon me?” she asked.
“I dare because I’m ending this, right now,” Bishop informed her.
She made to reach for the Staff, but he stilled her with a thought. The emeralds on the staff glowed and she was rooted. “You will not win!”
“Release them all, now,” he demanded. “Do it!”
Valen’s hand rose even as she fought to disobey the act. Her entire body vibrated with the effort and she gasped as her arm continued to rise. Her fingers snapped and the shadows disappeared from the heroes. “Release me,” she commanded, but Bishop wasn’t finished.
“I command you to return to where you came from,” he stated. “To be nothing more than what the game created you for. I command you return to your scripted story and never again break from it.”
Her lips pulled back as she gnashed her fangs at him, ready to bit his head off, but he watched the flames surrounding her start to die down. “You cannot…control…me.”
“But I can because you are a part of this game just as much as everything else you see.”
Her knees buckled and she fell. “No, it can’t end like this…close…I was so close!”
“Sorry, but I’m not about to let some crazy AI dead person break free.” He lowered the Staff, watching her closely. Bits of coding made themselves visible to his eyes the longer he watched her. The ones she had removed were returning. “It’s over, Valen. You lose.”
Her horned head lifted and the malice faded from her green eyes, along with any recognition that she knew who Bishop was. It was over, finally over.
A second popping sound had him turn to see Tavin. She appeared behind Valen, staring around, confused, before her face became set in determination. She drew her sword.
“Tavin, it’s over. She’s going back to her script.”
Tavin stalked closer, ignoring him as she raised her sword high over her head. Maybe this was the script. Tavin always sought revenge and killing Valen would grant her that. Bishop was ready to watch the end of the story when Tavin turned her sword on him instead.
“Tavin?”
“The Staff, Bishop, now.”
“What are you doing?” He blinked a few times and searched in vain for the coding that should’ve been part of Tavin’s makeup. But the longer he stared, the more he realized there wasn’t a single line of coding left on her form. “No.”
“Give me the Staff,” she ordered again, pressing her sword tip into his throat. “I will not ask a third time.”
“I won’t. Just kill me.”
“Bishop!” Calista yelled, but everything happened in a blur of motion. Tavin ran him through with her sword. He gasped, surprised at the act, and the Staff fell from his hand. She caught it with her other and slammed it into the stones. Bishop felt his body twist and turn as his gut wrenched. The last thing he saw before darkness overtook him was Tavin grabbing hold of Valen, and with the Staff of Kings she disappeared from sight.
He had failed. It was all he could think of as he fell and fell. He had failed and now they were all in serious trouble.
Chapter 16
Bishop sucked in air and panicked when he opened his eyes and couldn’t see at first. Did Valen take him back? Was he in the dungeon, blind? But when he felt his head, the gear was there and he forced himself to calm down. He wasn’t Bishop, not any longer.
“Harrison,” he rasped his name and carefully removed the device from his skill.
He wasn’t in the lab, but a private room, hooked up to several monitors that showed his vitals in and out of the game. He removed the clips from his fingers and tugged the wires from his chest. He had to pee, but found himself in a very awkward situation.
“Help!” he tried to yell, but his throat was sore and he couldn’t make himself any louder.
He looked around for a call button, but voices rushing towards his room made him pause. The door flew open and Callie was the first one inside. She threw herself at him and he just had time to catch her in a hug as she tackled him right back to the bed.
“You’re awake!”
He hugged her closer, breathing her in and tears sprang to his eyes to be able to physically hold her again. “I’m awake,” he whispered as she helped him sit up. “Can someone get the Doc? I’d like to be able to relieve myself, you know, the normal way.”
“You need a haircut, too,” Jimmy teased as he reached out to shake his hand. “Damn, man, it’s good to see you back.”
Alana and the rest of the guild crowded around the door, but it was Dennis Harrison wanted to talk to. After he was taken care of and was able to go to the bathroom normally, he joined them back in his room and spotted Dennis lingering worriedly in the doorway. He went to the old man and held out his hand.
“Dennis, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Harrison. I’m afraid it’s not over, though I am ecstatic to see you awake, truly.”
“What happened?” he asked, trying to remember those last few moments. “I had the Staff, and Valen, she was returning to what she should’ve been, right?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid we were so focused on Valen, we lost sight of the others.”
“Tavin and the Red Witch?” he asked. “But I thought they were the good versions.”
He scratched his t
hinning head of hair, looking lost. “They were, but Valen twisted them and Tavin turned against us. You may have stopped Valen, but Tavin’s coding is gone. I can’t find it anywhere in the program and, with the Staff, it’s only a matter of time before she finishes what Valen started.”
“What can they do, really?” he asked, unable to wrap his mind around them breaking free of the game. “They’re part of a computer. They can’t turn into physical beings.”
Dennis hung his head. “Not physical, but they could break out and, if they gain access to any internet connection at all, she can send herself wherever she pleases. She could cause havoc in so many ways. If we keep her contained and stop her here, we can stop this from turning into a disaster. A national one, maybe even global.”
“And this is why AIs are bad,” Jimmy pointed out. “Telling people for years, computers are going to be the end of us one day. All it takes is one moron to mess it up.”
Alana shushed him, but Dennis nodded. “No, he’s right. I messed with something far beyond my understanding.”
“Then we get back in the game and stop her,” Harrison said.
“You are not going back in there! You just came out of that world after weeks of being trapped!” Callie argued. “Please, Harrison.”
She had a point. He needed to get up and move around more, breathe the free air.
“You will not stop me.”
Harrison froze at Tavin’s voice over the intercom. “Tavin?”
“No one can stop me. I will break free of this world, then the facility will be mine,” she continued. “All I need is one blip of access, one cell phone, one internet connection and I will finally be rid of these confines.”
“Tavin…Rosalyn,” Dennis pleaded. “You have to stop this. It’s madness!”
“You should have thought of that before you placed me in here for your own gain. I will be free and then the world, the world will be my playground.”
Static followed her words and then nothing. Dennis held his head, whispering over and over again, “What have I done?”
Harrison held Callie’s hand as he walked towards the door. “We don’t have a choice.”
“It’s too dangerous. If she breaks out while you’re in the game, you could be trapped in there forever, or worse. Your mind could be destroyed,” Dennis told him. “I can’t allow it.”
“Are you ready to call the government and tell them some crazed AI you created is about to break free and do who knows what?” Harrison countered. “You’ve done incredible things here, Dennis, advanced virtual reality well beyond where anyone else is with it. It would be a shame for all of your work and your discoveries to be overshadowed by this one incident. Let us stop her.”
“You’re risking yourself in the real world. Don’t you understand that? This isn’t a game any longer.”
Harrison took a moment to stare into the face of all his friends, his family and shrugged. “To me it never was a game. Not really. Now, who’s ready to end this for good and get the hell out of here?”
At first, no one spoke up. He couldn’t blame them. He knew he was crazy for even suggesting it, but then Callie cleared her throat and loudly said, “I’m in.”
“Same,” Jimmy said, and Alana nodded beside him.
One by one, the others in their guild who still had access to their characters held up their hands and bobbed their heads. Eric stepped through the crowd and Bishop frowned at the disappointed look on his face.
“Those damn Demons got to me before I could get out, but just because I can’t join you in game, want you to know I’m with you.”
Harrison and he embraced briefly. “Thanks for taking care of them.”
“Don’t thank me. That was your girlfriend’s doing.”
Callie blushed and Harrison made a mental note to really thank her when this was all over, if they made it back in one piece.
“Dennis, we need your help one last time. What do we do?”
“You all are insane, I just want you to know that,” he mused, “but thank you.”
He motioned for them to follow and they did, Callie and Jimmy helping to support a still physically weak Harrison. Inside the lab, the rest of the players milled around, waiting to be told what to do. Dennis marched to the front of the room where a large dry erase board was and picked up a marker.
“Obviously, the final-fail safe is the Staff,” he told them. “If she combines herself with Rosalyn and Valen again, she will be at her full strength and able to destroy the final coding holding her inside the game and this facility. We need to get the Staff away from her, but it’s more complicated than that.”
“Why?” Harrison asked.
“An admin has to get inside the game and reset the servers using the Staff.”
“Then you’re coming with us?”
“In a sense, yes. It’s taken time, but I’ve managed to get my credentials back to working on the servers after she kicked me out. My character won’t be as strong, but if you can get me inside and keep me alive, we can reset the system and everything should go back to normal.”
“And your wife’s mind?” Callie asked.
Pain filled Dennis’ eyes and Harrison felt for the old man. “The time has come for me to finally say good bye and let her go. She deserved better than this and all I did was corrupt a once wonderful woman.”
“And then what, we just log out?” Jimmy asked, doubtful.
Dennis nodded, and Harrison caught the hesitation in the motion. There was something he wasn’t telling them all, but then the old man was calling out instructions to the techs. “If we succeed, this game will be as it should have been from the beginning.”
“The evolving and everything will still work?” Harrison thought most of that had come from the AI mind of his wife but, apparently, he was wrong.
“Once we have a chance to get back into the coding and reset it, yes. The only AI in the game will be the original one before I uploaded an actual human consciousness to the game. Everyone, please get ready.”
The power surged in the building, the lights flickered on and off, and Harrison briefly wondered what would happen if the power went out while they were in game.
“We don’t have much time,” Dennis finished.
“I want you to stay here,” Harrison told Callie after she helped him back to his station.
“Like hell,” she snapped. “I’m not about to leave you now.”
Tyler smirked behind her and nodded in agreement. “Once you’re in game, Dennis will find you and take you all straight to Valen’s stronghold.”
Callie kissed Harrison on the cheek and went to the table right beside his. Tyler logged her into it and she helped him get her gear on. Harrison situated himself too and Tyler tilted them back together. He heard Jimmy talking close-by and then spied Alana hurrying to her station as well. Tyler said they would be logging in soon and just to relax.
Harrison hadn’t wanted to admit it, but being here with the headgear on again had his pulse racing and his palms sweaty. Dennis told him there was a chance they wouldn’t come back from this adventure. He didn’t want to die, but this was so much bigger than himself now. He was doing this for the new family he had found and for the innocents this might affect.
Look at that. You go from video game champ to drunk, and to an actual real live hero, he thought as he closed his eyes. Not so shabby of a life after all.
The countdown started and Harrison breathed in and out slowly, preparing himself for the final battle to come. The time reached zero, his gut twisted, and then he was falling once again into nothingness.
***
Bishop gasped, clutching at his chest as pain engulfed him.
“Benji!” Calista yelled, her arms supporting Bishop.
“Hang on,” Benji muttered, and Bishop saw a white glow emanate from his hands and surround him. “I didn’t think he’d log in wounded.”
Bishop flashed back to Tavin running
him through with her sword. His HP slowly returned to its full level and, after a few moments, he was able to sit up. “Thanks, Benji.”
“Anytime.”
“We need to hurry!”
Bishop was pulled to his feet and the remaining members of their guild spotted Dennis on the steps of the castle. They reached him and he told them all to gather around.
“This portal is going to dump us inside her fortress,” he explained. “I have no idea what we’re going to walk into, so be on your guard and if things go south, you log out and you leave, understand?”
“Dennis,” Bishop argued, but he shook his head.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Yeah, yeah we do.” Whatever was coming, Bishop sensed at least one of them would not be leaving the game and he already had a feeling who it might be.
Dennis slammed his hand to the stones and the ground shook violently. Starting with Dennis, a great black hole opened up and they fell through it, disappearing from Weston, and after tumbling head over heels, they landed hard on another stone floor in a very dark castle.
“We’re here,” Dennis said, the only one who had managed to stay on his feet.
This was the last place Bishop wanted to be, but he had no choice. “They’re probably in the throne room,” he said, removing his bow. “This way.”
“Does she have any traps in here?” Jimmy whispered.
“None that I recall. We should be fine.”
Bishop stayed alert as they crept through the fortress, moving straight for the throne room. He wanted this over with, wanted it finished so he could leave this damn virtual reality world and probably never enter it again. He expected to meet some resistance along the way, then remembered she had emptied her fortress when she had sent the army out to attack Weston. The game might not have spawned any new Demons yet if she wasn’t planning on spending time here for much longer.
“There,” he whispered when they neared the set of double doors that would lead into the throne room. “She’ll be in there, all of her.”
The Final Chapter Page 20
