by Baron Sord
“Me neither, but that’s what happened.”
“Do we pay? Do we send them another 35? If she’s still alive and we don’t send it, we’re taking a big risk.”
I took a deep breath. “I say we stand firm. If we bend over now, they’ll keep asking for more. Don’t tell Dad I said that.”
“I won’t. So, what? Demand they send us a Mr. Wiggles video before we pay the 35?”
“Yeah. I’ll whip up a new email on the plane. What are you gonna do while I’m in Bangkok?”
“Keep looking for Emily in RO. Take the rune dude to the Oracle and wake him up. Maybe he knows something.”
“You can tell me what you find out after I get to Bangkok. In the mean time, you and Dad should start thinking of people who can loan us the other 55K in case we have to pay the full 150. And make sure you logout frequently to check your phone.”
“I’ll have my messages forwarded to my character.”
“You can do that?”
“Easily. And make sure you take your NeuraLink with you.”
“Why? I’m not going back in that damn game.”
“Just do it, Logan. You might need to.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll bring it.”
Two minutes later, I ran outside and dropped into a waiting SuperUber. After listening to VR-Candice, (my virtual chauffeur, not the real one I’d met at Opal), blab at me for the next hour, I arrived at the airport and jumped on the midnight flight to Bangkok. By the time I landed, it would by Friday morning in Thailand. This was cutting things too close for comfort. I’d have one day to find Emily before we had to pay the kidnappers the full amount. My only hope was that they’d give us an extension because we’d already paid them $40K. Maybe we would be smart to pay them the other 35 now to literally buy more time. As long as they weren’t irrational maniacs, they’d be drooling for the final 75. If their end-goal was money, they might be willing to work with us. What a joke. That made it sound like this was a business transaction, which it wasn’t. It was extortion. Either way, Dad and Jason needed more time to hopefully scrounge up another $55K.
I’d think about what to say to the kidnappers next during the flight.
The second I was buckled in and the landing gear left the tarmac, I couldn’t escape the sickening feeling that this trip was a waste of time. There was a very good chance Emily was already dead, or nowhere close to Bangkok. But at least I was doing something in the real world instead of Reternity. Anything was better than wasting more time getting nothing done.
While everyone else was busy watching movies or sleeping in the dark cabin of the wide-body 797, I did a little research on the internet about real-world kidnap negotiations. Turned out, we’d done most everything right so far. We’d started with a low payment offer, demanded proof of life, asked about Mr. Wiggles, hadn’t given in to our emotions, and weren’t promising more cash than we had. Well, not too much more. I also read some articles and watched some movie trailers about hostage negotiation to see if I could learn anything useful from that. Sadly, unless you had Denzel Washington or Samuel L. Jackson around to help out with heroics, the real key was simple: listen to the kidnappers, find out where they were coming from, and establish rapport. After you earned their trust, you worked with them. Hard to do that when they were sending 2 word emails all the time. But it gave me a few ideas about how to approach my next email. I realized my last email sounded like I was the one making the demands. Instead of making more demands, I wrote:
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What do you want in exchange for a video of Emily telling the camera where Mr. Wiggles is buried?
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That put the ball in their court.
Before I sent it, I transferred $5,000 cash to Dad, whose account info I had, and told him to give it to Jason for Bitcoins. Then I emailed Jason the message I was going to send and told him what I’d learned about hostage negotiations. Five minutes later, he texted back saying the email looked good to him.
So I sent it to the kidnappers.
Ten minutes later, they replied.
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$75,000 USD in Bitcoin for wiggle video. Address is…
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Were we bargaining? I wasn’t sure. But I knew the only way to bargain was to actually do it. I fired back:
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$25,000 USD. I can send it in 5 minutes.
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Their reply:
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$50,000 USD in Bitcoin. Address is…
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“Can I get you anything, sir?” the Cathay Pacific stewardess in the red blazer asked.
I gasped like someone had stuck a gun in my back and I almost jumped out of my seat. I would have if I hadn’t been belted in. Feeling guilty, I turned my phone over so she couldn’t see the screen. I wanted to say to her, Can you get me a hostage negotiator? Instead, “Can I buy a beer?”
“Certainly. What would you like?”
“Whatever you got,” I smiled.
She brought me a Budweiser a few minutes later.
Anything to take the edge off. I cracked the top of the can and heaved a sigh. Where were Denzel and Sam Jackson when you needed them? Doing this alone was nerve-wracking. Speaking of which, I texted Jason and told him I was negotiating. He replied 30 seconds later that I should keep him posted.
I emailed the kidnappers:
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$30,000 USD. I can send it in 5 minutes.
Work with me here.
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Their response:
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$45,000 USD in Bitcoin. Address is…
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Geez, was I talking to a robot? At least they were dropping their price. I emailed:
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$35,000 USD. I can send it in 5 minutes.
If you want more than that, I need to see the video.
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They wrote:
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Send $35,000 USD. Video after.
=============
I texted Jason.
Four minutes later, he told me he’d sent the Bitcoins. Another $35K gone for good. They’d better send that damn video and Emily better be smiling in it like she was on a tropical vacation at a Caribbean resort.
I downed the rest of my beer.
Didn’t hear anything from the kidnappers. They probably needed time to film the video. Or fake it. My stomach soured at the thought. I needed a better distraction than this beer. So I downloaded The Negotiator, Inside Man, and Hostage onto my phone and slipped in my wi-fi earbuds. Hopefully Denzel, Samuel, and Bruce Willis could give me the confidence I was utterly lacking at the moment.
Six hours later, I had finished all three movies.
Still nothing from the kidnappers.
Were they dragging their feet because they were faking the video? Or because Emily was dead? Or were they just being difficult? Or did they have no intention of sending it and just wanted to get as much money as they could before disappearing? If that happened and Emily was still alive, would they release her? Or would they simply leave her wherever they’d left her mind-locked and skip town so she could die of starvation?
I had no idea.
I pretended I didn’t want to start bashing kidnapper heads together. If I ever met them face to face, I would murder the fuck out of them.
Ten hours into the fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong, and somewhere over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I got a text from Jason: Get on RO as soon as you land. You’re never going to believe this.
I would’ve put my NeuraLink on my head in the plane, but when I tried loading the RO app, it told me the wi-fi network was too slow to run it. During my layover in Hong Kong airport, I wanted to put the headset on the second after I walked up the jetway and into the terminal, but I had to run to catch my connecting flight to Bangkok. I was shaking in my seat during the final descent. After the wheels touched d
own, I practically jumped off the wing of the Boeing 797 and raced to the hotel, hoping like hell they had high speed wi-fi.
—: o o o :—
“What did she say?” Emily hissed, tugging on the robe of her court appointed attorney. She was referring to the witness sitting behind the witness podium in the cramped courtroom.
Emily’s attorney whispered, “She say, ahhhhh, mmmmm, she say you sell Ya-ba her son?”
“What?! I’ve never seen that woman in my life! I don’t even know who her son is!”
He frowned. “Sorry. Say slow?”
Emily groaned. “I. Don’t. Know. That. Woman. I. Have. Never. Seen. Her. Ever. I. Never. Sold. Her. Any. Drugs. I. Never. Sold. Her. Son. Any. Drugs.”
“Ahhhhh. How many drug?”
“No drugs!” Emily hissed. “None! Zero! Nada!”
“Oh.” He nodded.
It had been like this all day because the entire trial was conducted in Thai. When it started, Emily had asked if she could have an interpreter. The two judges in the black robes sitting shoulder to shoulder behind the bench had said no. So she was stuck relying on her attorney to interpret when and if he could, which was rarely. She’d missed 99% of what anyone had said. It didn’t help that she was sick and dehydrated and struggling to stay focused. Not that it would’ve made any difference.
The lead judge interrupted the prosecutor and asked the woman on the witness stand a direct question.
The woman stood and bowed to him briefly before turning to face Emily. She seared Emily with a hateful look and fired an accusatory finger right between Emily’s eyes. After a moment, she turned back to the judge and yammered away in Thai for several minutes. By the end of her sobbing monologue, she was crying so hard she couldn’t speak. Exhausted, she fell into the witness chair.
The two judges nodded sympathetically, concern and pity weighing on their pained faces as they made eye contact with the witness.
She said a few more blubbery words in shaky Thai before she broke down in fresh tears and buried her face behind the witness stand.
“What did she say?” Emily whispered to her attorney.
“Ahhhhhh. Mmmmm. She say, ahhh, you, ahhh, mert-der?”
Emily gasped. “Murder?”
He nodded vigorously, “Yes. Mert-der.”
Emily’s eyes saucered. “Murder who?”
“Mmmmm, her son, ahhhhh—”
“Oh my God! I didn’t kill anybody!”
“With drug. With Ya-ba. You mert-der her son with Ya-ba drug you sell.” He smiled.
Emily wanted to cry while strangling him to death, followed by banging her head repeatedly against the nearest wall. Not only was her attorney inept, the police were corrupt, and apparently the legal system was both.
As the day wore on, the courtroom got hotter and stuffier and shrank in around her, imprisoning her in the thick humidity. The only thing more oppressive than the heat was the overwhelming sense that her life was over. Whether she got the death penalty or spent her life in prison, once her trial was finished, her life was too.
Today was the pathetic beginning of her bitter end.
It was so ridiculous, she wanted to laugh.
An insane laugh, the laugh of someone losing their mind.
—: Chapter 23 :—
Friday, March 20th, 2037
8:45am
The Real World
Bangkok, Thailand
When I got off the plane at Suvarnabhumi Airport (a.k.a Bangkok International), my phone said the fastest route to my hotel in the heart of downtown was on the BTS Skytrain. My gut said a cab would be quicker, but according to my phone, morning rush hour traffic was terrible today and there was an 86.7% chance the train was faster than a taxi. The good news was the Skytrain departed directly from the airport. The bad news was it stopped at Hua Mak Station, only halfway to the hotel, and wouldn’t start.
After 3 minutes of sitting on the train in the station, impatient passengers dressed for work started getting off. I considered joining them, but I didn’t want to jump the gun if it turned out the train started going a minute later. When a station attendant walked on board and started waving people off, I had to go down to the street with everybody else.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered to myself as I walked down the stairs.
The locals chattering around me all seemed to be muttering the same sentiment in Thai.
On the sidewalk, there were about a thousand scooters and motorcycles parked under a galvanized awning that ran along the edge of the Skytrain parking lot. If I could’ve rented one, I would have, but they weren’t for rent. Stealing one was out of the question. But I considered it.
While I waited for the right BMTA bus to show up, I kicked myself for not trusting my gut back at the airport. I should’ve taken a cab. I also used my phone to reserve a room at A-One Bangkok Hotel for $50 a night, the same hotel where Emily had stayed up until her disappearance.
The bus was packed full of Thai locals when it arrived. Inside, it was sweltering hot, despite the overhead fans and open windows. There was no place to sit, so I stood and grabbed an overhead bar. At least I wasn’t forced to watch any Reternity Online video ads like on a US monorail. In fact there were hardly any ads on the bus at all. Just a few small bumper sticker sized ads stuck to one window and printed in Thai. The one exception was a big RO sticker twice the size of a cafeteria tray covering an entire window pane of its own. Although the Reternity logo was in English, the rest of it was printed in Thai. It pictured a coiled dragon with an armored rider carrying a lance. No boobs or even bare arms or legs, but it screamed fantasy action and heroic adventure.
I smirked to myself.
Even in Thailand, you couldn’t escape RO.
I was jittery as the bus crawled through the honking traffic, my foot tapping continuously. I wanted to start searching for Emily, but I couldn’t run around this sprawling metropolis of a city without a plan. I’d never find anything if I did.
The bus dropped me off a few blocks away from the hotel and I walked the rest. I was expecting some rundown scuzzy tin-roof shanty, but it was huge and classy. Big white modern building. About 15 stories if you counted all the above-ground parking levels. Had a trendy lobby, 2 restaurants upstairs, a full size bar, and an outdoor pool on the 5th floor. Place like this would’ve cost $400 a night in the US.
The A/C inside was a blessing. I already had huge pit stains under the arms of my T-shirt. After I checked in, and after a tedious explanation, I was able to get Emily’s bags, which the hotel had been kind enough to store for the past 2 weeks, and for which they kindly asked I pay them 500 Baht for the favor. When that was done, I raced up to my room and went through Emily’s things, but found no clues that told me anything beyond what I already knew: Emily had been in Bangkok, but was she still in Bangkok?
I didn’t know.
So I texted Ryder and told him to meet me at the hotel at 11:00am sharp for lunch. Then I dropped on the bed and threw the NeuraLink on my head so I could talk to Jason.
—: o o o :—
Friday, March 20th, 2037
Reternity Online, in-game
The Freelands
Skyland
Justice of the Law Stronghold
“Did you find Emily?”
“Yes and no,” Jason said. “Put this on.”
We stood inside the war room in his white and black castle. He handed me a silver crown that looked suspiciously like a NeuraLink headset, except the jewels where white diamonds instead of blue LEDs.
I said, “Let me guess. Divination magic?”
Jason smiled, “You catch on quick.”
I set the magic crown on my head. “What do I do now?”
“First, sit down.” He pulled out a chair from one of the nearby tables in the war room. “Access your menu. There’ll be a new option for DreamStream. Follow the prompts to setup your account.”
I sat down and did what he said, using King FarthurT to save time. “Okay, now what?�
��
“Do a search for Death in the Deadlands.”
“How do I type? There’s no keyboard.”
“Think it. Like when you friend chat with me.”
“Got it.” A dozen video windows suddenly floated in front of me, but only one had the exact title, so I touched it.
A rush of sensation blotted out all my awareness and I was someplace else.
Lightning punched a hole in the dark night sky, illuminating a dead forest. Rain pounded the ground. I was somewhere high in a tree. Below, two men chased a young woman through the mud. She wore a plain dress. Was that Emily? I couldn’t tell because her back was to me.
My view suddenly shifted and I was… flying. Trailing behind the trio about 100 feet in the air. They ended up on a plateau covered by row after row of dead trees lined up like black tombstones in a graveyard.
The men carried swords that glowed. One light blue, which I immediately recognized as Air based magic. The other was black. I remembered black energy from the Ogren Ghoul that drained Layna’s levels. Probably the same magic, but I didn’t know which kind. When the men caught up with the young woman, they grabbed her and starting talking to her, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance over the pounding rain.
I felt myself gliding downward before landing on a branch. Looking down, I saw black bird claws. Was I inside the body of a crow? I couldn’t tell from the inside. But my guess was a crow. Or maybe a raven. I didn’t have a sense of scale.
The woman turned in my direction a few times, but with all the branches between us, I couldn’t get a good look at her, despite my unusually sharp distance vision. Like looking through binoculars.
Was there a way to fly closer? No. This was a passive experience.
Suddenly, I was flying again, wings whipping the air. Shortly after, I landed in a flutter. That’s when I saw her face clearly.
