Jim Baen’s Universe

by Edited by Eric Flint

  I slit­her, sne­ak, and ge­ne­ral­ly shimmy my mo­nas­tic ass aro­und the squ­are, avo­iding the qu­a­in­te ol­de me­di­a­eval gal­lows and the smo­king ho­le in the gro­und that used to be the Al­c­he­mists' Gu­ild. On the east si­de of the squ­are is the Way­fa­rer's Ta­vern, and so­me dis­tan­ce to the so­uth-west I can see the bat­tle­ments and tur­rets of Cas­t­le Storm lo­oming out of the early mor­ning mists in a sur­ge of got­hic che­ese­ca­ke. I go in­si­de, step­ping on the blue rec­tan­g­le and wa­iting whi­le the world pa­uses, then he­ad for the bar.

  "Right, I'm in the bar," I say alo­ud, pul­ling my Pro­j­ect Auro­ra lap­top out of the bag of hol­ding. (Is it my ima­gi­na­ti­on, or do­es so­met­hing snap at my fin­ger­tips as I pull them out?) "Has the tar­get mo­ved?"

  N0 J0Y, B08.

  I sigh, un­fol­ding the scre­en. Lap­tops aren't exactly na­ti­ve to NWN; this one's ma­de of two slabs of sap­phi­re held to­get­her by scrol­led mit­h­ril hin­ges. I sta­re in­to the glo­wing depths of its scre­en (ta­ilo­red from a pre-exis­ting crystal ball) and lo­ad a copy of the pub. Lo­oking in the back ro­om I see a bunch of stan­dard hen­ch-men, -wo­men, and -things wa­iting to be hi­red, but no­ne of them are exactly op­ti­mal for ta­king on the twen­ti­eth le­vel law­ful evil cha­te­la­ine of Cas­t­le Storm. Hmm, bet­ter bump one of 'em, I de­ci­de. Let's go for mun­c­h­kin mus­c­le. "Pinky? I'd li­ke you to drop a qu­ar­ter of a mil­li­on ex­pe­ri­en­ce po­ints on Gron­dor the Red, then up-le­vel him. Can you do that?" Gron­dor is the big­gest bad-ass half-orc fig­h­ter for hi­re in Bosch. This ought to turn him in­to a one-man kil­ling mac­hi­ne.

  0| «D00D.

  I can tell he's re­al­ly get­ting in­to the spi­rit of this. The bar­ma­id sas­hays up to me and winks. "Hi­ya, cu­te thing. (1) Want to buy a drink? (2) Want to ask qu­es­ti­ons abo­ut the town and its sur­ro­un­dings? (3) Want to talk abo­ut an­y­t­hing el­se?"

  I sigh. "Gim­me (1)."

  "Okay. (1) G'bye, big boy. (2) An­y­t­hing el­se?"

  "(1). Get me my be­er then piss off."

  One of the­se days I'll get aro­und to wi­ring a re­al con­ver­sa­ti­onal 'bot in­to the non-pla­yer cha­rac­ters, but right now they're still a bit-

  There's a hu­ge so­und from the back ro­om, sort of a cre­aking gra­un­c­hing no­ise. I blink and lo­ok ro­und, star­t­led. Af­ter a mo­ment I re­ali­ze it's the so­und of a qu­ar­ter of a mil­li­on ex­pe­ri­en­ce po­ints lan­ding on a-

  "Pinky, what exactly did you up-le­vel Gron­dor the Red to?"

  LVL 15 C0RTE5AN. LOL!!!

  "Oh, gre­at," I mut­ter. I'll swe­ar that's not a re­al cha­rac­ter class. A fat ma­ni­la en­ve­lo­pe ap­pe­ars on the bar in front of me. It's Gron­dor's con­t­ract, and from the small print it lo­oks li­ke I've hi­red myself a fif­te­enth le­vel half-orc rent boy for mus­c­le. Which is an­no­ying be­ca­use I only get one hen­ch-thug per ga­me. "One of the­se days yo­ur sen­se of hu­mor is go­ing to get me in­to re­al­ly de­ep tro­ub­le, Pinky," I say as Gron­dor flo­un­ces ac­ross the ro­ugh wo­oden flo­or to­wards me, a vi­si­on of ruf­fles, bows, pink sa­tin, and up­cur­ved tusks. He's clut­c­hing a vi­olet club in one gnarly red-na­iled hand, and he se­ems to be an­no­yed abo­ut so­met­hing.

  After a bri­ef and un­com­for­tab­le in­ter­lu­de that in­vol­ves run­ning on the walls and ce­iling and le­aves half the de­ni­zens of the ta­vern bro­ken and ble­eding, I ma­na­ge to calm Gron­dor down. "Gron­dor pit­hed," he lisps at me. "But Gron­dor thtill kickth ath. Whoth ath you wan­ting kic­ked?"

  "The wic­ked witch of the west. You up for it?"

  He blows me a kiss.

  LOL!!! ROFL!!! who­ops the pe­anut gal­lery.

  "Okay, let's go."

  ****

  Numerous ala­rums, ex­cur­si­ons, and open-palm fi­ve-pun­c­hes-de­ath at­tacks la­ter we ar­ri­ve at Cas­t­le Storm. Sit­ting out in front of the cru­el-lo­oking por­t­cul­lis, top­ped by the dis­mem­be­red bo­di­es of the sor­ce­ress's ene­mi­es and not a few of her fri­ends, I open up the lap­top. A mi­ni­atu­re thun­der­c­lo­ud ho­vers over­he­ad, ra­ining on the tur­rets and bo­un­cing lig­h­ting bolts off the (cur­rently ina­ni­ma­te) gar­goy­les.

  "Connect me to Lady Storm's bo­udo­ir mir­ror." I say. (I try to ma­ke it co­me out as an in­s­c­ru­tab­le mon­kish mut­ter rat­her than in­to­ning, but it do­esn't work pro­perly.)

  "Hello? Who is this?" I see her fa­ce pe­ering out of the depths of my scre­en, li­ke an un­holy cross bet­we­en Cru­el­la de­Vil­le and Mar­ga­ret That­c­her. She's not we­aring ma­ke-up and half her ha­ir's in cur­lers- that's odd, I think.

  "This is the ma­na­ge­ment," I in­to­ne. "We ha­ve be­en no­ti­fi­ed that con­t­rary to sta­tu­tory re­gu­la­ti­ons is­su­ed by the Co­un­cil of Gu­ilds of Stor­m­vil­le you are run­ning an una­ut­ho­ri­zed bo­ar­ding ho­use, to wit, you are pro­vi­ding ac­com­mo­da­ti­on for men­di­cant jo­ur­ney­men. Nor­mal­ly we'd let you off with a war­ning and a fifty gold pi­ece fi­ne, but in this par­ti­cu­lar ca­se-"

  I'm re­ad­ying the amu­let of te­le­por­ta­ti­on, but she se­ems to be ab­le to an­ti­ci­pa­te events, which is just pla­in wrong for a non-pla­yer cha­rac­ter fol­lo­wing a script: "accom­mo­da­te this!" she his­ses, and cuts the con­nec­ti­on de­ad. The­re's a ham­me­ring rum­b­ling so­und over­he­ad. I glan­ce up, then ta­ke to my he­els and wrap my he­ad in my arms: she's ani­ma­ted the gar­goy­les, and they're ta­king wing, but they're still ma­de of sto­ne. The cras­hing thun­der go­es on for qu­ite so­me ti­me, and the dust ma­kes my eyes sting, but af­ter a whi­le the­re's not­hing but the mo­ur­n­ful hon­king of the one who le­ar­ned to fly on the way down cir­c­ling the bat­tle­ments over­he­ad, and it's my turn.

  "Right. Gron­dor? Open that do­or!"

  Grondor snarls, then flo­un­ces for­ward and whacks the por­t­cul­lis with his do­ub­le-he­aded war axe. The physics mo­del in he­re is dis­tinctly ima­gi­na­ti­ve, you sho­uldn't be ab­le to re­du­ce a cast-iron gra­ting in­to a pi­le of wo­oden kin­d­ling, but I'm not com­p­la­ining. Thro­ugh the por­t­cul­lis we char­ge, in­to the bo­wels of Cas­t­le Storm and, I ho­pe, in ti­me to res­cue Pe­te.

  I don't want to bo­re you with a blow-by-blow des­c­rip­ti­on of our blow-by-blow prog­ress thro­ugh Cru­el­la's mi­ni­ons. Suf­fi­ce to say that fol­lo­wing Gron­dor is a lot li­ke tra­iling be­hind a frothy pink ma­in bat­tle tank. Thug­gish gu­ards, evil imps, and the odd adept tend to ex­p­lo­de mes­sily very so­on af­ter Gron­dor se­es them. Un­for­tu­na­tely Gron­dor's not very dis­c­ri­mi­na­ting, so I ma­ke su­re to go first in or­der to ke­ep him away from cun­ningly en­gi­ne­ered de­ad­fal­ls (and Pe­te, sho­uld we find him). Still, it do­esn't ta­ke us too long to comb the lo­wer le­vels of the ca­verns un­der Cas­t­le Storm (aided by the handy dun­ge­on edi­tor in my lap­top, which al­lows me to bu­ild a brid­ge over the Chasm of Des­pa­ir and tun­nel thro­ugh the rock aro­und the Dra­gon's La­ir, which isn't very spor­ting but ke­eps us from be­ing to­as­ted). Which is why, af­ter a co­up­le of ho­urs, I'm be­gin­ning to get a sin­king fe­eling that Pe­te isn't ac­tu­al­ly he­re.

  "Brains, Pe­te isn't down he­re, is he? Or am I mis­sing so­met­hing?"

  H3Y d0NT B3 5AD D00D F1N| «0V V XP!!!

  "Fuck off, Pinky, gi­ve me so­me use­ful in­put or just fuck off, okay?" I re­ali­ze I'm sho­uting when the rock wall next to me be­gins to crack omi­no­usly. The hi­de­o­us pos­si­bi­lity that I've lost Pe­te is sin­king its claws in­to my bra­in and it's wor­se than any Fe­ar spell.

  OK KE­EP UR HA­IR 0N!! 15 THIS A QU3ST?? D0 U N33D 2 C0NFRONT S0RCR3SS 1ST?

  I stop de­ad. "I blo­ody ho­pe not. Did yo
u no­ti­ce how she was be­ha­ving?"

  Brains he­re. I'm grep­ping the ser­ver log­fi­le and did you know the­re's an ex­t­ra user con­nec­ted over the in­t­ra­net brid­ge?

  "Whu- " I turn aro­und and ac­ci­den­tal­ly bump in­to Gron­dor.

  "Grondor say (1) Do you wish to mo­dify our tac­tics? (2) Do you want Gron­dor to at­tack so­me­one? (3) Do you think Gron­dor is sexy, big boy? (4) Exit?"

  "(4)" I in­to­ne-if I le­ave him in a con­ver­sa­ti­onal sta­te he's not go­ing an­y­w­he­re, dam­mit. "Okay, Bra­ins. Ha­ve you tra­ce­ro­uted the in­t­ru­si­on? Bosch isn't sup­po­sed to be ac­ces­sib­le from out­si­de the lo­cal net­work. What de­par­t­ment are they co­ming in from?"

  They're co­ming in from-a lon­gish pa­use- so­mew­he­re in HR.

  "Okay, the plot just thic­ke­ned. So so­me­one in HR has got in. Any idea who the pla­yer is?" I've got a sne­aking sus­pi­ci­on but I want to he­ar it from Bra­ins-

  Not IRL, but didn't Cru­el­la act way too fle­xib­le to be a bot?

  Bollocks. That is what I was thin­king. "Okay. Gron­dor: fol­low. We're go­ing up­s­ta­irs to see the wic­ked witch."

  Now, let me tell you abo­ut cas­t­les. They don't ha­ve ele­va­tors, or fi­re es­ca­pes, or ex­tin­gu­is­hers. Re­al ones don't ha­ve ex­p­lo­ding who­opee cus­hi­ons un­der the car­pet and elec­t­ri­fi­ed do­or-han­d­les that blush red when you no­ti­ce them, eit­her, or an og­re res­ting on the se­cond-flo­or mez­za­ni­ne, but that's be­si­de the po­int. Let me just ob­ser­ve that by the ti­me I re­ach the fo­urth flo­or I am be­gin­ning to bre­at­he he­avily and I am get­ting dis­tinctly pis­sed off with Her El­d­ritch Fe­ar­so­me­ness.

  At the fo­ot of the wi­de glit­te­ring sta­ir­ca­se in the mid­dle of the fo­urth flo­or I tem­po­ra­rily mis­p­la­ce Gron­dor. It might be so­met­hing to do with the ten­th-le­vel ma­ge lur­king be­hind the tran­som with a ma­gic fla­me-th­ro­wer, or the si­mul­ta­ne­o­us ar­ri­val of abo­ut a ton of ste­el spi­kes fal­ling from con­ce­aled ce­iling pa­nels, but Gron­dor is re­du­ced to a gre­asy pi­le of goo on the flo­or. I sigh and do so­met­hing to the ma­ge that wo­uld be ex­t­re­mely pa­in­ful if he was a re­al per­son. "Is she up­s­ta­irs?" I ask the glo­wing let­ters.

  SUR3 TH1NG D00D!!!

  "Any mo­re traps?"

  N0!!??!

  "Cool." I step over the gre­ase spot and pa­use just in front of the sta­ir­ca­se. It ne­ver pays to be rash. I pick up a stray ste­el spi­ke and chuck it on the first step and it go­es BANG with ex­t­re­me pre­j­udi­ce. "Not so co­ol." Rin­se, cycle, re­pe­at and fo­ur small ex­p­lo­si­ons la­ter I'm stan­ding in front of the do­or­way fa­cing the top step. No mo­re who­opee cus­hi­ons, just a twen­ti­eth-le­vel sor­ce­ress and a mi­ni­on in cha­ins. Happy joy. "Pinky. Plan B. Get it re­ady to run, on my word."

  I bre­ak the do­or and en­ter the witch's la­ir.

  Once you've se­en one witch's den you've se­en 'em all. This one is a bit glit­zi­er than usu­al, and so­me of the fur­ni­tu­re is non-stan­dard even ta­king in­to ac­co­unt the La­undry hak-packs lin­ked in­to this re­alm: whe­re did she get the ma­in­f­ra­me from? I won­der bri­efly be­fo­re go­ing on to con­si­der the ex­t­re­mely omi­no­us Dho-Na ge­ometry cur­ve in the mid­dle of the flo­or (com­p­le­te with a fran­tic-lo­oking Pe­te cha­ined down in the mid­dle of it) and the ex­t­re­mely ira­te-lo­oking sor­ce­ress.

  "Emma Mac­Do­ugal, I pre­su­me?"

  She turns my way, spit­ting blo­od. "If it wasn't for you med­dling hac­kers I'd ha­ve got­ten away with it!" Oops, she's ra­ising her ma­gic wand.

  "With what?" I ask po­li­tely. "Don't you want to ex­p­la­in yo­ur fi­en­dish plan, as is cus­to­mary, be­fo­re to­tal­ly ob­li­te­ra­ting yo­ur vic­tims? I me­an, that's a Dho-Na cur­ve the­re, so you're ob­vi­o­usly plan­ning a sum­mo­ning, and this ser­ver is in­si­de Ops block-we­re you plan­ning so­me sort of low-key dow­n­si­zing?"

  She snorts. "You stu­pid Ops he­ads, why do you al­ways as­su­me it's abo­ut you?"

  "Because- " I shrug. "We're run­ning on a ser­ver in Ops. What do you think hap­pens if you open a ga­te­way for an an­ci­ent evil to in­fest our de­par­t­men­tal LAN?"

  "Don't be na­ive. All that's go­ing to hap­pen is Pim­p­le-fe­atu­res he­re is go­ing to pick a go­od lit­tle gib­be­ring in­fes­ta­ti­on then go spre­ad it to ma­ma. Which will open up the pro­mo­ti­on lad­der aga­in." She sta­res at me, then her eyes nar­row tho­ug­h­t­ful­ly. "How did you fi­gu­re out it was me?"

  "You sho­uld ha­ve used a smal­ler ma­in­f­ra­me emu­la­tor, you know: we're so star­ved for re­so­ur­ces that Bosh runs on a three-ye­ar old Dell box, if you we­ren't slur­ping up all our CPU re­so­ur­ces we pro­bably wo­uldn't ha­ve no­ti­ced an­y­t­hing was wrong un­til it was too la­te. It had to be so­me­one in HR, and you're the only pla­yer on the ra­dar. Mind you, put­ting po­or Pe­ter-Fred in a po­si­ti­on of ir­re­sis­tib­le tem­p­ta­ti­on was a go­od mo­ve. How did you open the tun­nel in­to our si­de of the net­work?"

  "He to­ok his lap­top at night. Ha­ve you swept it for spywa­re to­day?" Her grin turns tri­um­p­hant. "I think it's ti­me you jo­ined Pe­te on the sum­mo­ning grid sac­ri­fi­ce no­de."

  "Plan B!" I an­no­un­ce brightly, then run up the wall and ac­ross the ce­iling un­til I'm abo­ve Pe­te.

  P1AN 8:):):)

  The ro­om abo­ve my he­ad lur­c­hes dis­tur­bingly as Pinky re­ar­ran­ges the fur­ni­tu­re. It's just a 90 deg­ree ro­ta­ti­on, and Pe­te's still in the sum­mo­ning grid, but now he's in the tar­get no­de in­s­te­ad of the sac­ri­fi­ce zo­ne. Em­ma is In­can­ting: her wand tracks me, its tip glo­wing gre­en. "Do it, Pinky!" I sho­ut as I pull out my dag­ger and sli­ce my vir­tu­al fin­ger. Blo­od runs down the bla­de and drops in­to the sac­ri­fi­ce no­de-

  And Pe­te stands up. The cha­ins hol­ding him to the flo­or rip li­ke damp car­d­bo­ard: his eyes are glo­wing even brig­h­ter than Em­ma's wand. His he­ad swi­vels. "Get her!" I yell, clen­c­hing my fist and trying not to win­ce. With no ac­tu­al sum­mo­ning vec­tor spli­ced in­to the grid it's wi­de open, an an­ten­na se­eking the ne­arest ma­ni­fes­ta­ti­on. With my blo­od to po­wer it, it's ac­ti­ve, and the first thing it re­so­na­tes with has co­me thro­ugh and si­de­lo­aded in­to Pe­te's he­ad. "She's from per­son­nel?"

  " Per­son­nel?" Rum­b­les a vo­ice from Pe­te's mo­uth-de­eper, mo­re cul­tu­red, and in­fi­ni­tely mo­re ter­rif­ying. " Ah, I see. Thank you." The be­ing we­aring Pe­te's flesh steps ac­ross the grid-which sparks li­ke a high-ten­si­on li­ne and be­gins to smol­der. Em­ma's wand wa­vers bet­we­en me and Pe­te. I stick my inj­ured hand in­to my bag of hol­ding and stif­le a scre­am when I ram it in­to the salt. " It's be­en too long." His fa­ce be­gins to len­g­t­hen, his jaw wi­de­ning and mer­ging at the ed­ges. He sticks his ton­gue out, and it's gre­yish-brown and rasp-li­ke te­eth are spro­uting from it.

  Emma scre­ams in ra­ge and dis­c­har­ges her wand at him. A bac­k­wash of ne­ga­ti­ve energy ma­kes my te­eth clench and my vi­si­on grey, but it's not eno­ugh to stop the se­cond co­ming of 'Slug' Joh­n­son. He slit­hers to­wards her ac­ross the flo­or, and she ge­ars up anot­her spell, but it's too la­te. I clo­se my eyes and fol­low the ac­ti­on by the inar­ti­cu­la­te shri­eks and the wet suc­king, gur­g­ling no­ises. Fi­nal­ly they die down.

  I ta­ke a de­ep bre­ath and open my eyes. Be­low me the ro­om is va­cant but for a cle­an-pic­ked hu­man ske­le­ton and a flo­or flec­ked with brown-I pe­er clo­ser-slugs. Mil­li­ons of the bug­gers. "You'd bet­ter let him go," I in­to­ne.

  " Why sho­uld I?" asks the as­sembly of mo­luscs.

  "Be
cause- " I pa­use. Why sho­uld he? It's a sur­p­ri­singly sen­sib­le qu­es­ti­on. "If you don't, HR-Per­son­nel-will just send anot­her. The­ir mi­ni­ons are in­fi­ni­te. But you can de­fe­at them by es­ca­ping from the­ir grip fo­re­ver-if you let me lay you to rest."

  " Send me on, then," say the slugs.

  "Okay." And I up-end my poc­ket over the mo­luscs, bur­ning and writ­hing be­ne­ath a whi­te pow­der­fall un­til not­hing is left but Pe­te, cur­led fe­tal­ly in the mid­dle of the flo­or. And it's ti­me to get Pe­te the hell out of this ga­me and back in­to his own he­ad be­fo­re his mot­her or so­me even wor­se hor­ror co­mes lo­oking for him.

  What Would Sam Spade Do?

  Jo Walton

  It was sha­ping up to be a qu­i­et day when Of­fi­cer Mur­tagh and Of­fi­cer Gar­cia ca­me knoc­king on my do­or. The PI bu­si­ness isn't all it's crac­ked up to be, es­pe­ci­al­ly not in Philly and es­pe­ci­al­ly not this we­ek. With snif­fers and true-tell and DNA log­ging, and most es­pe­ci­al­ly with the new di­vor­ce laws, I'd ha­ve be­en bet­ter off in ho­me in­su­ran­ce. I'd ha­ve be­en bet­ter off, that is, if it wasn't for the gla­mo­ur, and the best thing you can say for gla­mo­ur is that it isn't re­li­gi­on. I was amu­sing myself that mor­ning by re­ar­ran­ging the pu­ters and pho­nes on top of my desk and cal­cu­la­ting how long it wo­uld be be­fo­re I co­uld af­ford to hi­re a be­a­uti­ful as­sis­tant to sit in the outer of­fi­ce. I co­uldn't af­ford an outer of­fi­ce eit­her; my do­or ope­ned di­rectly from the stre­et. The an­s­wer had co­me out at fo­ur­te­en tho­usand and se­ven ye­ars when the knock ca­me. I co­uldn't wa­it that long, so I an­s­we­red it myself.