Jim Baen’s Universe

by Edited by Eric Flint

  His eyes are wi­de in the sha­dows. "You me­an, this is go­ver­n­ment work? Li­ke in De­us Ex?"

  I nod. "That's it exactly, kid." Ac­tu­al­ly it's mo­re li­ke Do­om III but I'm not re­ady to tell him that, he might start pes­te­ring me for a gre­na­de la­un­c­her.

  "So we're go­ing to, li­ke, set up a LAN party and log on­to lots of per­sis­tent re­alms and se­ar­ch'n'swe­ep them for de­mons and blow the de­mons away?" He's al­most pan­ting with eager­ness. "Wa­it'll I tell my ho­mi­es!"

  "Pete, you can't do that."

  "What, isn't it al­lo­wed?"

  "No, I didn't say that." I le­ad him back to­wards the well-lit cor­ri­dors of the Ops wing and the cof­fee bre­ak ro­om be­yond. "I sa­id you can't do that. You're un­der a Ge­as. Sec­ti­on III of the Of­fi­ci­al Sec­rets Act says you can't tell an­yo­ne who hasn't sig­ned the sa­id act that Sec­ti­on III even exists, much less tell them an­y­t­hing abo­ut what it co­vers. The La­undry is 100% un­der co­ver, Pe­te. You can't talk abo­ut it to out­si­ders, you'd cho­ke on yo­ur own pur­p­le ton­gue."

  "Eew." He lo­oks di­sap­po­in­ted. "You me­an, li­ke, this is re­al sec­ret stuff. Li­ke mum's work."

  "Yes, Pe­te. It's all re­al­ly sec­ret. Now let's go get a cof­fee and pes­ter so­me­body in Fa­ci­li­ti­es for a ma­ins ex­ten­si­on bar and a com­pu­ter."

  ****

  I spend the rest of the day wan­de­ring from desk to desk, fi­ling re­qu­isi­ti­ons and or­de­ring up sup­pli­es, with Pe­te snuf­fling and sham­b­ling af­ter me li­ke an su­per­si­zed spa­ni­el. The cle­aners won't be ab­le to work over Joh­n­son's of­fi­ce un­til next Tu­es­day due to an un­for­tu­na­te pla­ne­tary co­nj­un­c­ti­on, but I know a tem­po­rary fix I can sketch on the flo­or and plug in­to a re-pur­po­sed poc­ket cal­cu­la­tor that sho­uld hold 'Slug" Joh­n­son at bay un­til we can get him exor­ci­sed. Me­an­w­hi­le, thanks to a pi­ece of fre­akish luck I dis­co­ver a stash of el­derly lap­tops no­body is using; so­me­one in Ca­te­ring mis­t­y­ped the­ir co­de in the­ir As­sets da­ta­ba­se last ye­ar, and thanks to the won­ders of our on­go­ing ISO 9000 cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on pro­cess the­re is no le­gal pro­ce­du­re for rec­las­sif­ying them as ca­pi­tal as­sets wit­ho­ut trig­ge­ring a vi­sit by the Audi­tors. So I duly is­sue Pe­te with a 1.4 gi­ga­herz Tos­hi­ba San­d­wich To­as­ter, en­list his help in mo­ving my stuff in­to the new of­fi­ce, na­il a Wi­Fi ac­cess po­int to the do­or li­ke a tri­bal fe­tish or me­zu­zeh ("this of­fi­ce now oc­cu­pi­ed by ge­eks who wor­s­hip the gre­at god GHz"), and park him on the ot­her si­de of the spa­ci­o­us desk so I can ke­ep an eye on him.

  The next day I've got a staff me­eting at 10am. I spend the first half ho­ur drin­king cof­fee, ma­king sni­de re­marks in ema­il, re­ading slas­h­dot, and wa­iting for Pe­te to show up. He ar­ri­ves at twen­ty-fi­ve to ten: "he­re." I chuck a fat wal­let full of CD-Rs at him. "Install the­se on yo­ur lap­top, get on the in­t­ra­net, and dow­n­lo­ad all the pat­c­hes you ne­ed. Don't, wha­te­ver you do, to­uch my com­pu­ter or try to log on­to my NWN ser­ver - it's cal­led Bosch, by the way. I'll catch up with you af­ter the me­eting."

  "Why is it cal­led Bosch?" he whi­nes as I stand up and grab my se­cu­rity bad­ge off the fi­ling ca­bi­net.

  "Washing mac­hi­nes or Hi­eron­y­mo­us mac­hi­nes, ta­ke yo­ur pick." I he­ad off to the con­fe­ren­ce ro­om for the Ways and Me­ans Com­mit­tee me­eting-to in­ves­ti­ga­te new ways of be­ing me­an, as Brid­get on­ce ex­p­la­ined it to me.

  At first I'm mo­de­ra­tely ho­pe­ful I'll be ab­le to stay awa­ke thro­ugh the me­eting. But then Lucy, a buck-to­ot­hed goth from Fa­ci­li­ti­es, gets the bit bet­we­en the in­ci­sors. She's go­ing on in a giggly way abo­ut the ne­ed to out­so­ur­ce our ad­mi­nis­t­ra­ti­on of of­fi­ce sun­d­ri­es in or­der to fo­cus on our co­re com­pe­ten­ci­es, and I'm trying des­pe­ra­tely hard not to fall as­le­ep, when the­re's an odd thud­ding so­und that ec­ho­es thro­ugh the fab­ric of the bu­il­ding. Then my pa­ger go­es off.

  Andy's at the ot­her end of the tab­le. He lo­oks at me: "Bob, yo­ur call, I think."

  I sigh. "You think?" I glan­ce at the pa­ger dis­p­lay. Oops, so it is. "'Scu­se me folks, so­met­hing's co­me up."

  " Go on." Lucy gla­res at me half-he­ar­tedly from be­hind her lucky charms. "I'll mi­nu­te you."

  "Sure." And I'm out, al­most an ho­ur be­fo­re lunch. Wow, so in­terns are use­ful for so­met­hing. Just as long as he hasn't got­ten him­self kil­led.

  I trot back to the Slug's of­fi­ce. Pe­ter-Fred is sit­ting in his cha­ir, with his back to the do­or.

  "Pete?" I ask.

  No reply. But his lap­top's open and run­ning, and I can he­ar its fan chug­ging away. "Uh-huh." And the disk wal­let is open, lying on my si­de of the desk.

  I ed­ge to­wards the com­pu­ter ca­re­ful­ly, ta­king pa­ins to stay out of eye-shot of the scre­en. When I get a go­od lo­ok at Pe­ter-Fred I see that his mo­uth's aj­ar and his eyes are clo­sed: he's dro­oling slightly. "Pe­te?" I say, and po­ke his sho­ul­der. He do­esn't mo­ve. Pro­bably a go­od thing, I tell myself. Okay, so he isn't con­ven­ti­onal­ly pos­ses­sed…

  When I'm clo­se eno­ugh, I filch a she­et of pa­per from the in­kj­et prin­ter, turn the lights out, and an­g­le the pa­per in front of the lap­top. Very fa­intly I can see ref­lec­ted co­lors, but not­hing par­ti­cu­larly scary. "Right," I mut­ter. I sli­de my hands in front of the key­bo­ard-still ca­re­ful not to lo­ok di­rectly at the scre­en-and hit the key com­bi­na­ti­on to bring up the in­te­rac­ti­ve de­bug­ger in the ga­me I'm af­ra­id he's run­ning. Trip an obj­ect dump, hit the key­s­t­ro­kes for qu­ick sa­ve and qu­it, and I can bre­at­he a sigh of re­li­ef and lo­ok at the scre­en shot.

  It ta­kes me se­ve­ral se­conds to fi­gu­re out what I'm lo­oking at. "Oh you stu­pid stu­pid ar­se." It's Pe­ter-Fred, of co­ur­se. He in­s­tal­led NWN and the ot­her stuff I threw at him, the La­un­d­ry-is­sue hack pack and DM to­ols, and the cre­ati­on to­ol­kit. Then he went and did exactly what I told him not to do: he con­nec­ted to Bosch. That's him in the scre­en­s­hot bet­we­en the two half-orc mer­ce­na­ri­es in the ta­vern, lo­oking very af­ra­id.

  ****

  Two ho­urs la­ter it's lun­c­h­ti­me, Bra­ins and Pinky are baby-sit­ting Pe­te's su­pi­ne body (we don't da­re mo­ve it yet), Bosch is loc­ked down and fro­zen, and I'm sit­ting on the wrong si­de of An­g­le­ton's desk, swe­ating bul­lets. "Sum­ma­ri­ze, boy," he rum­b­les, fi­xing me with one yel­lo­wing rhe­umy eye. "Ke­ep it sim­p­le. No­ne of yo­ur jar­gon, li­fe's too short."

  "He's fal­len in­to a ga­me and he can't get out." I cross my arms. "I told him pre­ci­sely what not to do and he went ahe­ad and did it. Not my fa­ult."

  Angleton ma­kes a whe­ezing no­ise, li­ke a bo­iler thre­ate­ning to ex­p­lo­de. Af­ter a mo­ment I re­cog­ni­ze it as two tho­usand ye­ar old la­ug­h­ter, mum­mi­fi­ed and out for re­ven­ge. Then he stops whe­ezing. Oops, I think. "I be­li­eve you, boy. Tho­usands wo­uldn't. But you're go­ing to ha­ve to get him out. You're res­pon­sib­le."

  I'm res­pon­sib­le? I'm abo­ut to tell the old man what I think when a se­cond tho­ught scre­ec­hes in­to the pi­le-up at the back of my ton­gue and I bi­te my lip. I sup­po­se I am res­pon­sib­le, tec­h­ni­cal­ly. I me­an, Pe­te's my in­tern, isn't he? I'm a ma­na­ge­ment gra­de, af­ter all, and if he's be­en as­sig­ned to me that ma­kes me his ma­na­ger, even if it's a post that co­mes with lo­ads of res­pon­si­bi­lity and no ac­tu­al po­wer to, li­ke, stop him do­ing so­met­hing re­al­ly fo­olish. I'm in lo­co pa­ren­tis, or may­be just pla­in lo­co. I whis­t­le qu­i­etly. "What wo­uld you sug­gest?"

&nb
sp; Angleton whe­ezes aga­in. "Not my fi­eld, boy, I wo­uldn't know one end of one of tho­se new-fan­g­led Bab­ba­ge mac­hi­ne con­t­rap­ti­ons from the ot­her." He fi­xes me with a gim­let sta­re: "but fe­el free to draw on HR's bud­get li­ne. I will ma­ke en­qu­iri­es over on the ot­her si­de to see what's go­ing on. But if you don't bring him back, I'll ma­ke you ex­p­la­in what hap­pe­ned to his mot­her."

  "His mot­her?" I'm puz­zled. "You me­an she's one of us?"

  "Yes. Didn't An­d­rew tell you? Mrs. Yo­ung is the de­puty di­rec­tor in char­ge of Hu­man Re­so­ur­ces. So you'd bet­ter get him back be­fo­re she no­ti­ces her son is mis­sing."

  ****

  James Bond has Q Di­vi­si­on; I've got Pinky and Bra­ins from Tech Sup­port. Bond gets jet packs, I get who­opee cus­hi­ons, but I re­pe­at myself. Still, at le­ast P and B know abo­ut fir­st-per­son sho­oters.

  "Okay, let's go over this aga­in," says Bra­ins. He so­unds unu­su­al­ly chip­per for this early in the mor­ning. "You set up Bosch as a ser­ver for a per­sis­tent Ne­ver­win­ter Nights world, run­ning the full Pro­j­ect Auro­ra hack pack. That gi­ves you, oh, lots of ex­ten­si­ons for trap­ping de­mons that wan­der in­to yo­ur re­alm whi­le you tra­ce the­ir ow­ner's PCs and inj­ect a bunch of spywa­re, then call out to Ac­co­unts to send a black-bag te­am ro­und in the re­al world. Right?"

  "Yes." I nod. "An in­ter­net ho­ney­pot for su­per­na­tu­ral in­t­ru­ders."

  "Wibble!" That's Pinky. "Hey, ne­at! So what hap­pe­ned to yo­ur PFY?"

  "Well." I ta­ke a de­ep bre­ath. "The­re's a big cas­t­le over­lo­oking the town, with a twen­ti­eth-le­vel sor­ce­ress run­ning it. Lots of glyphs of sum­mo­ning in the ba­se­ment dun­ge­ons, so­me of which ac­tu­al­ly bind at run-ti­me to a class lib­rary that im­p­le­ments the co­re tran­s­for­ma­ti­onal gram­mar of the Lan­gu­age of Leng." I hunch over slightly. "It's re­al­ly ne­at to be ab­le to do that kind of ex­pe­ri­ment in a vir­tu­al re­alm-if you ac­ci­den­tal­ly sum­mon so­met­hing nasty it's trap­ped in­si­de the ser­ver or may­be yo­ur lo­cal area net­work, rat­her than be­ing out in the re­al world whe­re it can eat yo­ur bra­ins."

  Brains sta­res at me. "You ex­pect me to be­li­eve this kid to­ok out a twen­ti­eth le­vel sor­ce­rer? Just so he co­uld dick aro­und in yo­ur dun­ge­on lab?"

  "Uh, no." I pick up a blue-tin­ted CD-R. So­me­one-not me-has scrib­bled a car­to­on skull-and-cros­sbo­nes on it and ad­ded a cap­ti­on: DO NOT RE­AD ME. "I've be­en lo­oking at this-ca­re­ful­ly. It's not one of the disks I ga­ve Pe­te, it's one of his own. He's not to­tal­ly clu­eless, for a crack-smo­king script kid­die. In fact, it's got a bunch of in­te­res­ting class lib­ra­ri­es on it. He went in with a knap­sack full of spe­ci­al toys and just hap­pe­ned to fuck up by trying to rob the wrong ta­vern. This re­alm, be­ing hos­ted on Bosch, is scat­te­red with traps that are su­per­c­las­sed in­to a bunch of scan­ner ro­uti­nes from Pro­j­ect Auro­ra and sniff for any ta­int of the re­al su­per­na­tu­ral. Pro­bably he whif­fed of La­undry bu­si­ness-and that set off one of the traps, which yan­ked him in."

  "How do you get in­si­de a ga­me?" Asks Pinky, lo­oking ho­pe­ful: "co­uld you get me in­to Grand Theft Auto?"

  Brains glan­ces at him in evi­dent dis­gust. "You can vir­tu­ali­ze any uni­ver­sal Tu­ring mac­hi­ne," he sniffs. "Okay, Bob. What pre­ci­sely do you ne­ed from us in or­der to get the kid out of the­re?"

  I po­int to the lap­top: "I ne­ed that, run­ning the Dun­ge­on Mas­ter cli­ent in­si­de the ga­me. Plus a class fo­ur sum­mo­ning grid, and a lot of luck." My guts clench. "Ma­ke that a lot mo­re luck than usu­al."

  "Running the DM cli­ent-" Bra­ins go­es cross-eyed for a mo­ment: "-is it re-en­t­rant?"

  "It will be." I grin mir­t­h­les­sly. "And I'll ne­ed you on the out­si­de, run­ning the or­di­nary net­work cli­ent, with a co­up­le of cha­rac­ters I'll pre­lo­ad for you. The sor­ce­ress's hol­ding Pe­te in the third-le­vel dun­ge­on ba­se­ment of Cas­t­le Storm. The way the nar­ra­ti­ve's set up she's pro­bably not go­ing to do an­y­t­hing to him un­til she's al­so ac­qu­ired a who­le bunch of plot co­upons, li­ke a coc­kat­ri­ce and a mind fla­yer's gall blad­der-then she can sac­ri­fi­ce him and tra­de up to a fo­ur­th-le­vel de­mon or a new cas­t­le or so­met­hing. An­y­way, I've got a plan. Re­ady to kick ass?"

  ****

  I ha­te wor­king in dun­ge­ons. They're dank, smelly, dark, and things ke­ep jum­ping out and trying to kill you. That se­ems to be the de­fi­ning cha­rac­te­ris­tic of the gen­re, re­al­ly. De­ad bo­ring hack and slash - but the kid­di­es lo­ve 'em. I know I did, back when I was a wee spoddy twel­ve ye­ar-old. Fi­ne, says I, we're not trying to sna­re kid­di­es we're lo­oking to at­tract the mo­re ce­reb­ral kind of MMORPG pla­yer-the sort who're too cle­ver by half. De­sig­ners, in ot­her words.

  How do you sna­re a dun­ge­on de­sig­ner who's ac­ci­den­tal­ly stum­b­led on a way to sum­mon up shog­goths? Well, you ne­ed a web si­te. The smart ge­eks are al­ways mag­pi­es for ide­as-they see so­met­hing new and it's "ooh! shiny!" and be­fo­re you can snap yo­ur fin­gers they've do­ne so­met­hing you didn't an­ti­ci­pa­te with it. So you set yo­ur si­te up to suck them in and lock them down. You se­ed it with a bunch of dow­n­lo­adab­le go­odi­es and so­me in­te­res­ting chat bo­ar­ds-not the usu­al MY MAG1C USR CN TW4T UR CLE­RIC, D00D but ac­tu­al use­ful in­for­ma­ti­on-use­ful if you're prog­ram­ming in NWScript, that is (the high-le­vel prog­ram­ming lan­gu­age em­bed­ded in the ga­me, which har­d­co­re de­sig­ners wri­te ga­me ex­ten­si­ons in).

  But the web­si­te isn't eno­ugh. Ide­al­ly you want to run a net­wor­ked ga­me ser­ver-a per­sis­tent world that yo­ur vic­tims can con­nect to using the­ir cli­ent sof­t­wa­re to see how yo­ur bun­ch'o'tricks lo­oks in the vir­tu­al flesh. And fi­nal­ly you se­ed clu­es in the ser­ver to at­tract in the marks who know too damn much for the­ir own go­od, li­ke Pe­ter-Fred.

  The prob­lem is, Bos­c­h­World isn't re­ady yet. That's why I told him to stay out. Wor­se, the­re's no easy way to dig him out of it yet be­ca­use I ha­ven't writ­ten the obj­ect ret­ri­eval co­de yet-and wor­se: to spe­ed the de­ve­lop­ment pro­cess up I grab­bed a who­le bunch of pub­lis­hed co­de from one of the big­ger on­li­ne per­sis­tent re­alms, and I ha­ven't we­eded out all the spu­ri­o­us qu­ests and cur­ses and shit that ma­ke li­fe ex­ci­ting for ad­ven­tu­rers. In fact, now I think abo­ut it, that was go­ing to be Pe­ter-Fred's job for the next month. Oops.

  ****

  Unlike Pe­te, I do not blun­der in­to Bosch un­p­re­pa­red: I know exactly what to ex­pect. I've got a co­up­le of che­ats up my non-exis­tent monk's sle­eve, in­c­lu­ding the fact that I can en­ter the ga­me with a le­vel eig­h­te­en cha­rac­ter car­rying a lap­top with a so­ur­ce-le­vel de­bug­ger-all pra­ise the new self-de­con­s­t­ruc­ting re­ality! The sto­ne flo­or of the mo­nas­tery is gritty and cold un­der my ba­re fe­et, and the­re's a chilly mor­ning bre­eze blo­wing in thro­ugh the hu­ge oak do­ors at the far end of the com­po­und. I know it's all in my he­ad-I'm ac­tu­al­ly sit­ting in a cram­ped of­fi­ce cha­ir with Pinky and Bra­ins ham­me­ring away on key­bo­ard to eit­her si­de-but it's still cre­epy. I turn ro­und and ge­nuf­lect on­ce in the di­rec­ti­on of the hu­ge and ex­t­re­mely scary de­vil car­ved in­to the wall be­hind me, then he­ad for the exit.

  The Mo­nas­tery sits atop so­me truly bi­zar­re sto­ne for­ma­ti­ons in the mid­dle of the Wild Wo­ods. I'm sup­po­sed to fight my way thro­ugh the wo­ods be­fo­re I get to the town of, um, wha­te­ver I na­med it, Stor­m­vil­le?-but sod that. I stick a hand in­to the bot­tom­less depths of my very ex­pen­si­ve Bag of Hol­ding and pull out a
scroll. "Stor­m­vil­le, North Ga­te", I in­to­ne ( why do an­ci­ent mas­ters in or­ders of mar­ti­al monks al­ways in­to­ne, rat­her than, li­ke, spe­aking nor­mal­ly?) and the scroll crum­b­les to dust in my hands, and I'm lo­oking up at a sto­ne to­wer with a ga­te in the ba­se and so­me bint stic­king a buc­ket out of a win­dow on the third flo­or and yel­ling "gardy loo". Well, that wor­ked okay.

  "I'm the­re," I say alo­ud.

  Green se­ri­fed let­ters track ac­ross my vi­su­al fi­eld, com­p­le­tely spo­iling the at­mos­p­he­re: WAY K00L B0B. That'll be Pinky, ri­ding shot­gun with his usu­al de­li­cacy.

  There's a big blue rec­tan­g­le in the ga­te­way so I walk on­to it and wa­it for the uni­ver­se to dow­n­lo­ad. It's a long wa­it-so­met­hing's gum­ming up Bosch. (Com­pu­ters aren't as po­wer­ful as most pe­op­le think; run­ning even a small and rat­her stu­pid in­tern can re­al­ly bog down a ser­ver.)

  Inside the North Ga­te is the North Mar­ket. At le­ast, it's what pas­ses for a mar­ket in he­re. The­re's a bunch of zom­bi­es dres­sed as yo­ur stan­dard dun­ge­on ad­ven­tu­rers, sham­b­ling aro­und with spe­ech bub­bles over the­ir he­ads. Most of them are web ad­dres­ses on eBay, lo­ca­ti­ons of auc­ti­ons for in­te­res­ting pi­eces of ga­me con­tent, but one or two of them lo­ok as if they've be­en cru­dely tam­pe­red with, es­pe­ci­al­ly the ass-he­aded nob­le­man re­pe­atedly bel­ting him­self on the he­ad with a hu­ge, le­at­her­bo­und copy of A Mid­sum­mer Night's Dre­am. "Are you guys su­re we ha­ven't be­en hac­ked?" I ask alo­ud. "If you co­uld check the trip­wi­re logs, Bra­in…" It's a long shot, but it might of­fer an al­ter­na­te ex­p­la­na­ti­on for Pe­te's pre­di­ca­ment.