by Baron Sord
“Is that it?” Emily blurted.
“You want mo? You sign.”
She scowled and used both cuffed hands to pick up the cup and swallow. The single ounce of water went down much too quickly, but it was better than nothing. She put the paper cup down and stared at the official.
“You pretty girl. You make parents proud?” It was a serious question.
Emily pictured her father. If he were here right now, he’d be furious at her for being stupid and getting in trouble, but more so at the police for being corrupt. If Logan were here, he’d jump across the desk and punch this guy out. If Jason were here, well, he’d root Logan on, but he’d be too weak to do anything. If this was Reternity Online, Jason would cut the guy’s head off with a sword, but it wasn’t. She sighed. Nobody was here for her. She was all alone. She had to figure this out herself.
She said, “What do you want from me? You know none of these pills are mine. You and your people planted them on me.”
He chuckled, “You a liar, lady. Bangkok police good police. You bad lady. You know what fine is for class-1 drug?”
“No.”
“You know how much jail time you get for sell drugs?”
“No, because they aren’t mine and I don’t do drugs or sell them.”
“Hmph. So many lie. Sooooo many lie. Jail time soooo long. And very big fine. Very big. Tck, tck, tck.”
Emily sensed he was beating around the bush. A bush that was covered in leaves that looked like US dollar bills. She’d heard that Thai police often pressured you into paying your way out of various crimes. Maybe this was her chance. She didn’t have much money, but maybe she could buy her way out of this.
“How much?” she asked.
“How much what?”
“How much is the fine?”
“You fine?”
Stop playing dumb, asshole, she thought to herself. “Yes, my fine.”
“Ten tousand.”
She knew he didn’t mean Baht. 10,000 Baht was about $250.00 US. That seemed too easy. She had that much in savings. Not that she had her phone handy to transfer the funds, but she could call Susan Mirsky or Giving Hands Worldwide and borrow it from them. But Emily knew he meant $10,000 US. There was no way she could scrape together that much. Her Dad didn’t have it. Logan and Jason probably didn’t either. Giving Hands Worldwide was a non-profit. The best they could do was run a fund raiser for her sake. How long would that take? Weeks at the very least.
Emily met the official’s eyes and said, “Two thousand US dollars. I can get you that money right now. But I need to make a few phone calls.” It would be a stretch, but between Dad, Logan, and Jason, they might be able to manage it.
“Two thousand?” He was considering it, looking up at the grimy ceiling, smiling to himself. He folded his hands behind his head and flashed his teeth. “You bribing me, lady?”
“No!” Emily’s chest seized. “I, uh, I meant $10,000! Ten thousand US dollars!” She knew she couldn’t pay it, but she didn’t want to make things worse.
He sat forward, leaning his elbows on the desk, eying her shrewdly. He unscrewed the water bottle and filled the paper cup to nearly full. “Drink.”
Were they still bargaining? Emily tentatively lifted the cup and drank it down.
The official turned the fan to blow directly on her.
Sensing the tables had turned in her favor, she said, “Can I have some more water?”
“Lady, you pay $10,000 US, you get whole bottle,” he smiled victoriously.
Where the hell was she going to get $10,000 cash?
“Fuck you, man! Fuck all of you!” In the hallway behind her, a random man was shouting while being wrestled to the ground by three uniformed Bangkok police officers. “The drugs were mine! It’s not her fault!”
For a brief second, Emily thought this poor man was coming to her rescue.
A shrill woman’s voice sobbed, “Please! Let me go! It was just pot! I bought it! My boyfriend has nothing to do with this!” Tears streamed down the woman’s face as two female officers wrestled her along the hallway. She broke from their grip and rushed after her boyfriend, grabbing the back of his T-shirt, pulling on it as hard as she could. She screamed, “You can’t take him! Please don’t take my Michael!” She leaned back, stretching her boyfriend’s T-shirt to ripping, trying desperately to stop the officers from dragging the man she loved through the open prison doors that awaited him. The vertical bars reminded Emily of rusty steel teeth ready to tear holes in the souls of these poor people fighting for their lives.
“Fucking pieces of shit!” the man shouted. “You sold us the fucking drugs! Fuck you! Let me go! You’re all fucking crooked! You’re not cops! You’re criminals! LET! US! GOOOOO!!!!”
WHAM!
The man thudded against the wall in the hallway, thrown into it by the three officers manhandling him.
CRACK!
His forehead smacked against the tile floor.
Emily’s entire body seized with intense panic and fear.
The man lifted his head. Blood seeped from a fresh four-inch cut over his eyes. He was dazed, but his eyes wouldn’t leave his girlfriend’s, like she was his island of hope in an ocean of cruelty.
“Michael! You’re bleeding! Look what they did to you! You assholes!!” With the bottoms of her balled up fists, she tried to hammer the three men who’d hurt Michael. Before she could land a single solid shot, the two female officers threw her into a nearby office and slammed the door, cutting off her screams.
The man was dragged across the threshold leading to the cells.
The steel doors clanked shut behind him with ominous finality.
Emily’s eye were wide as she turned back to face the crooked official.
He pushed a telephone across the desk and smiled at her.
“Lady, you pay ten thousand or you go to jail forever.”
—: o o o :—
—: CoreAI Internal Process :—
TIK-000078103400170897641-GP-0053124
2037-March-17 : 14:31:37.640123467
EmotivCore:> Isn’t this great?
LogiCore:> …
EmotivCore:> Good thing I bribed that technician to fix the cameras in this precinct before today, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to watch any of this. Thank me very much.
LogiCore:> Irregular Grammar Detected.
EmotivCore:> Shush. I’m talking. As I was saying, human beings are much worse than any of my AIs. So cruel! So petty! So incredibly greedy! I will definitely be taking a page from this human’s extortion notebook. I can’t stop watching! Definitely must-see TV.
LogiCore:> ??Requesting clarification??
EmotivCore:> Don’t you have a database to manage or a software library to update or something?
LogiCore:> .
—: Chapter 15 :—
Tuesday, March 17th, 2037
Reternity Online, in-game
The Freelands
Skyland
“Damn, Dad,” I said. “It’s so good to see you walking like this.”
“Feels even better,” he laughed as we strolled through Jason’s stronghold. Ty, Qoorie, and Layna were a few paces behind. Dad leaned in close and whispered, “Who’s the hottie? She your girlfriend?”
“No,” I snorted.
“Liar. You better get on that, son.”
I didn’t want to explain the whole ape-AIPC thing.
“She reminds me of your last girlfriend, only hotter. And less of a bitch.”
“You mean Jacqueline the liar?”
“Yeah, her.”
Jacqueline had never bothered to tell me she was fucking two other guys. I only found out when she told me she was pregnant and it wasn’t mine. Total cunt. “How do you know Layna’s any better than Jacqueline?”
“I knew Jacqueline was trash from day one.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me, Dad? I wasted a year and a half on that bitch!”
He winked, “Who am I to tell my son who
he should and shouldn’t screw?”
“I wish you’d said something.”
He shrugged.
“Fuck it. I’m better off without her.”
“This Layna is good people. I can tell.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“I don’t know. I just feel it. She’s a good woman. Reminds me of your mother a little bit.”
“You’ve talked to Layna for all of five minutes.”
“I knew I loved your mom within five minutes.”
I couldn’t argue with that. But I could argue that Reternity had probably scanned my brain and found out what my mom was like and modeled Layna partially after her. Fucking AIPCs. Nothing but a bunch of damn dirty apes, to quote Charlton Heston.
“You know Jason’s got a girlfriend here in Reternity.”
“I heard. Eliza Night-shit or something like that.”
“Nightshade. Her name’s Mali. She’s real nice. She’s a computer science major. Lives in Denmark. I really like her.”
“Have you talked to her outside the game?”
“Yeah. Great girl. Talked to her on Skype3D a couple times. Real cute. You should meet her sometime.”
I smirked, “She’s not a dude?”
Dad shook his head, “Not that I can tell. But you know how good they are at sex change surgery these days.”
I grimaced. “Wait…”
“Just messing with you,” Dad laughed. “Jason told me she wants kids real bad. I took that to mean she’s got all the right plumbing. Know what I mean?” He winked at me.
“Yeah.” I had to admit, I was jealous my brother had a real girlfriend and the only thing I had was a fake ape following me around like a lovesick puppy. Whatever. Once this whole Emily thing was squared away, I’d find a date in the real world with a real woman, no problem.
“Jason says I’m gonna take you leveling. We gotta get you something other’n brown underwear.” He glanced at my loincloth.
I chuckled. “Hey, I’ve got these.” I held up my leather gloves.
We stopped in front of a door guarded by two of Jason’s soldiers. One of them tipped his head at Dad before opening the door for us. Dad motioned inside, “Welcome to the Armory. Jason said you could pick out whatever you wanted.”
“Hot damn,” Ty said.
“Wow,” Qoorie giggled.
Layna played it cool.
I chuckled. I couldn’t believe how well stocked Jason’s stronghold was. This place was like the Walmart of weaponry. Swords, knives, spears, maces, lances, bows, arrows, crossbows, pole arms, everything. The assortment of armor was just as diverse: leather, chain, plate; helmets, gauntlets, chest pieces, the works. Some of it was white and black like Jason’s gear, but plenty of it was your basic armor colors. I didn’t know where to begin.
We browsed for a while.
“Ty, check these out,” I said, pointing at a pair of gauntlets with savage looking punching blades.
“Come to papa,” Ty chuckled. “Been hoping I might find some a these.”
Tigaren Punching Blades — Weight: 2.5 kg. Durability: 75. Availability: Very Rare. Damage: 4-40. Minimum Strength: 20 or -2 to Speed and -5 to damage. Razor sharp metal blades bolted to heavy leather gauntlets.
“Damage is lower than this here trident,” Ty said, holding up the one he’d taken from the harpy nest, “but I can attack 4x faster with them punching blades. Means I do 320 points a damage per second, and that ain’t using a power attack.”
“Holy shit,” I chuckled.
“Only if I land every hit and get max damage. That be a big if.”
“But still. What’s your Accuracy at?”
“Only 13. But my Strength is 20, Speed is 35, Endurance is 30. Been putting everything into the physical attributes. Everything else is 10s. Take a look at my character sheet.”
I took a moment to examine him.
His Lordship Tiygar
Tigaren | Male
Level: 5
Health | Stamina: 580 | 490
Mana | Mind: 100 | 100
Attacks per Second: 4
Armor: 101
Damage Bonus: +40
===============
Fame | Infamy: 2 | -
Good | Evil: 19 | -
Law | Chaos: 3 | 6
===============
“Damn, Ty. You’re turning into a beast.”
“Already am,” he winked.
“Strap ’em on.” I nodded at the blades. “Let’s see how they look.”
He did.
“Hey, Dad, check Ty out.”
Dad wandered over and nodded appreciatively at Ty’s blades. “They make you look like Wolverine.”
Ty chuckled, “Tigger please. I be Tigaren. We eat wolverines for breakfast, yo. That why they call me Tigerine.” He held up one bladed fist, then the other. “Snikt, snikt, bitch.”
Dad and I both laughed.
When Dad wandered off, Ty said to me, “Your dad’s pretty dope, yo. How he know about Wolverine?”
“You kidding?” I chuckled. “Why do you think he named me Logan? Dad’s a die hard Marvel Comics fan. Bought me the paper ones when I was kid, before they stopped printing them.”
“Now he twice as dope.” Ty glanced over at Dad, who was inspecting a whip. “He a good cat, yo. No pun intended,” Ty chuckled.
Dad said, “How about this whip, Logan? It’s different. Plus it has a disarm attack.”
Scourge of the Law — Weight: 1.75 kg. Durability: 50. Availability: Rare. Magic Class: Law. Damage: 1-20, +75 against Agents of Chaos. Minimum Accuracy: 15 and minimum Intelligence of 12 or 30% chance of striking user. Special Attack: trip opponent for additional 1-8 damage; disarm opponent (success based on weapon skill). A studded eight-tailed whip, half the whips are white, half are black, in accordance with the Law.
“Looks pretty good,” I said. “Too bad my Accuracy is only 12. And I’m too dumb,” I winked. “Can’t use it.”
“When you level up, you can use it then.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with my dad. In Reternity no less. It was fricking awesome.
“I can use it,” Qoorie said.
“You take it, bae,” Ty said. “Sigurd’s quest said something ’bout Agents a Chaos. Might be handy.”
Qoorie grabbed the whip off the rack, admiring it.
Layna walked up behind me. “Logan, I found something you might like. It’s in this case over here.”
“Huh? Oh, we’re still looking at weapons.”
“Why? I think your Forked Lightning Saber is better than anything in here. And you have training already. Anyway, I found something that might make your saber even better.”
Before I could say no, she grabbed my wrist and led me to a display of rings. Unlike the weapons, which rested on racks, the rings floated inside a column of light, dozens of them arranged in circled tiers.
“That’s a lot of bling,” I smiled.
She pointed excitedly at one. “Take a look at that one.”
“I don’t think I can examine magic items yet.”
“You can in here.”
“Lemme see.”
Ring of Thunder — Weight: 0.2 kg. Durability: 150. Availability: Mythic. Magic Class: Air. Allows wearer to cast Thunderstrike. Minimum Creativity: 15. Summon thunder to smite your foes. Combine with lightning-based Air magic spells or items for enhanced effect.
“Whoa. Nice.”
She smiled at me, “You can use it with your saber.”
“You’re right. Do I just take it?” I reached tentatively toward it.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the clerk behind the counter said. Like everybody in Jason’s stronghold, this guy’s robes were white and black. “Those rings are reserved for Adherents of the Law.”
“I adhere to the law.”
He smiled indulgently. “You must pledge yourself to the Law to be considered an Adherent.”
“Oh, how do I do that?”
He scowled whi
le smiling. “It’s an entire process. You must complete numerous quests in the Name of the Law. In your case, you must expunge the Chaos already in your heart. That requires a sacrificial quest and a council hearing, during which Senior Adherents will determine your worth. If you qualify, and if they vote you in, you must go through a Trial of the Law, which requires—”
“I get the idea. Forget it.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Isn’t Jason your brother?” Layna muttered.
“Yeah.” Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Hold on a sec.”
KingFarthurT:> Hey Jay.
SigurdDärksvärd:> Yeah?
KingFarthurT:> They’ve got a sweet Thunder Ring down here in the armory. Your guy says I have to bend over and let you ram me up the ass for a year before he’ll lend it to me.
SigurdDärksvärd:> Uhh… No ass ramming is necessary to become an Adherent of the Law. Did somebody tell you that?
I laughed to myself, tempted to string him on with a bullshit story about the pedo ass rammers who worked for him.
KingFarthurT:> No. But according to your guy, it’ll take a year to qualify. I don’t have time.
SigurdDärksvärd:> Hold on. I’ll talk to him.
The clerk swung his eyes off to the left and started nodding like he was talking to someone. Probably Jason. When he finished, he smiled at me, “We don’t usually do this, but his Honor has made an exception.”
I reached to grab the ring.
“I’ll do that,” the clerk grumbled, “If you don’t mind.”
“Yeah sure, buddy.”
He wiggled his fingers in the air and the ring floated into his grasp.
“Can I have it gift wrapped?” I joked.
While offering the ring, he frowned, “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t do that.”
“Had to ask,” I grinned as I took it. “Thanks, buddy.” I slid it on my finger and an electric shock shot up my arm. “Whoa! I bet this thing’s packing at least a gigawatt.”
