There was no light coming around the big shutter-like doors that closed them off from the sea so Izaak knew it was nighttime as he’d hoped. Omega Wars was roughly 13 hours from sunrise to sunrise but it varied with the seasons and location on the earth. The light Alkindi had mounted in the roof of the cave popped on, giving Izaak enough light to see.
At the end of their subterranean lair, a long cylinder floated on its side just flush with the water’s surface – the ‘submarine hull’ they’d found in the junkyard on their last session. Next to it, was a new boat Alkindi must have built. That guy was a wonder. Not a day went by Izaak didn’t find something he’d built or scavenged. Izaak deployed his fan shield which flashed out with a pleasing metallic ching. It was the coolest thing he’d ever seen in Omega, ever.
Izaak checked the security monitors on the main floor but didn’t see anything moving nearby. Out the windows, the sea was dark. He could barely see the outline of the old, surf-battered Archon warship against a black sky that held just a hint of glow from the concealed moon. The sounds of swells breaking on the rocks below filled the room. The only thing missing was the smell of the sea. Sometimes it was easy to forget they were playing a game.
There was some creepiness to it, Hector had to admit. And it was one of the things his mother didn’t like. She’d told him over and over that video games and smart phones were ruining the country. Hector didn’t agree, although it was exactly what had happened in the Omega Wars story. Everyone had grown so dependent on computers that when the Archons crashed it all, the world was helpless. Transportation and shipping ground to a halt and the Archons just sat back as most of the world’s population starved to death. A planetary siege with no way to pour boiling oil on the attackers. Hector didn’t think that could happen – yet. But in the future?
“Hey Izaak.”
Izaak spun around to find a voluptuous red head considering him. “Oh, hey, Chaz. I mean, Rada.”
Rada peered out the window. “Junkyard’s crawling with Reavers tonight. Can’t get close to the castle.”
“There’s a boat in the tunnel,” said Izaak, trying not to look at her bulging, digital breasts. Why did they have to make it so real? “I bet we could get there that way.”
“Just the two of us? We’ll probably get our butts kicked.”
“Not if they don’t know we’re there.”
Ω
The small boat moved silently through the water, pushed along by electric propellers. Fortunately Alkindi had painted it black – if ‘painted’ was the right word in a virtual world. But Hector could think of nothing else to call it. He glanced back at Rada, huddling under a heavy black cloak to conceal her red hair and other distractions.
The mass of the peninsula rose up black in the night, blotting out the stars as they drew near. A few lights twinkled up on the summit. Even digital people needed light, Hector thought. Omega Wars had money, and an economy, and commodities, and physical laws, just like reality. And this Alanya had police, and rules, and limits. And Izaak had felt fear. The virtual world and reality weren’t the same thing, but they weren’t very different, either.
“Izaak?” Rada asked, her face cloaked in shadow. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Just sort of weirded out thinking about the virtual world.”
Rada laughed. “Yeah, it’d be nice to live in the game world. But then again, kissing a girl is…” His voice trailed off. “Better.”
“I heard you went out with Tyra. How’d it go?”
“Like I said. Reality is better.”
Izaak’s stomach did a little flip. “You kissed her? She’s like the hottest girl in the school.”
“I’ll tell you, I was pretty horrified taking her to my house. I had no clue how my folks would respond to me showing up with a black girl. Even one that looks like her. But the only thing my dad said was how pretty she was. How long have you known her, Hector?”
“I really don’t know her that well,” Izaak said. “She’s more Deion’s friend. He’s had a crush on her since like second grade. I know she plays volleyball and sings in the chorus. Other than that…” A shrug gesture would be nice, thought Hector.
“Well,” Rada said, and took a long pause, “I’m supposed to meet her parents some time this week. And I’m about to piss my pants thinking about meeting her dad.”
Izaak started to comment on the strangeness of a lusty, female barbarian talking about dating the sexiest girl around when a searchlight popped on high above and a bright circle swept over the water. They crouched low in the boat. The light swept over them several times then went out.
“Somebody’s awake up there,” said Rada, and the boat moved on in silence. In a few, quiet minutes, the cliffs towered above them like immense black walls. The castle was so high above them even a searchlight would never catch them on the surface at night. But there was no way up.
Izaak wondered if Pappous’ underwater cave had been added yet. He’d submitted a change request to MegaSoft last week, using Pappous’s old archaeological reports. His grandfather thought he was helping with Hector’s history paper, but Hector had chosen Alanya as his topic for just this purpose. The teacher loved it, especially since it was the site of what was being called, “The best hope for peace since the end of World War II.” But Hector didn’t care about that. With Pappous’ cave, he would have a way into the castle not even the inhabitants knew about. He considered looking for the underwater cave now. But against the massive bulk of the mountain, at night, it seemed a futile thing to try.
They followed the cliffs around the Dragon’s Tail to the east side of the peninsula. It seemed an impenetrable wall until they came to a deep gorge on the southern cliffs that started at the top and plunged all the way down to the sea. Izaak steered their skiff into the chasm and motored up the miniature fjord. At the back, they found a steep slope, climbable for barbarians and vanguards, and completely unguarded. The climb to the top took nearly a half hour, and when they finally scrambled over the edge, they found themselves up against the old wall. On either side of them, the cliffs plummeted almost vertical to the rocks below. “Hate to fall off of that,” Izaak said, staring over the edge, with a queasy feeling. Even if it was digital, it was still a long way down.
The wall proved easy to scale, and once on the other side, they headed overland toward the mosque on the far side of the citadel where Hector had seen the portable slipgate. It was tough going. The hill was steep and rocky. Old houses were dug into the hillside almost everywhere but they were all dark. A merc would have had a lot of trouble and made a lot of noise getting through it, but Izaak and Rada moved silently and unnoticed. Reavers might be all over the base of the peninsula but there was no one guarding its interior. If Mal-X had hired the Reavers to protect him, they must think the only threat was from the land.
After another half-hour, the resort came into view. Unlike everything else they’d come across so far, it was well lit. But only a few guards milled around out front.
The mosque, not far away from it, was nearly invisible in the darkness. There were no lights on, no guards, and it stood silent and still in the digital night. “Hold here,” Izaak whispered, and activated his refractive camouflage. Refrac worked reasonably well during the day, but at night only infrared could find him. He dissolved into the black and scaled the low wall surrounding the mosque with ease, and crept to the front doors. They were locked. He tried several door-opening tools he carried, but nothing worked. Then he made his way around the outside looking for another way in. He thought about using his grappling hook but above him were only the smooth lines of the dome. So he circled the mosque back to where he’d left Rada waiting outside the compound.
“What’d you find?” she asked.
“No way in. We’ll have to come back. Let’s go check out the resort. The guards must be there for some reason.”
The resort was the kind of place a soccer star or Formula One driver would stay, well beyond the pay of an
Army Lieutenant Colonel. Hector had never been here in real life, so he’d studied it from above on Google Earth. This six-floor building was where most of the upcoming summit would be held. Four guards posted out front.
“Tell you what,” said Rada, as they watched from afar, “I’ll take the two on the right. You –”
“What is it with you fighters?” Hector exclaimed. “That’s not the only door you know.”
“Jeeze Hector, that’s what the game’s all about. Swinging my axe.”
“Well if we go in like that, they’ll know we’re here.”
“So I have to wait here again?”
Izaak glanced at the red-headed barbarian, eager for blood and gore. But rushing in made no sense. It reminded Hector of a problem his father would complain of. He’d begin to build relationships with locals, but then the Air Force would make a ‘precision’ strike. Except it was never as precise as they hoped, making his father’s job impossible. Ultimately fatal. Izaak shook his head. “You sound like Darxhan. All he ever wants to do is go around mowing everything down.”
“Well, that’s what barbarians do.”
“If we can get our hands on that slipgate we’ll be the most powerful clan in Omega Wars. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“I guess that’s something. How long are you going to be?”
“I’ll be back before you can say Izaak Ersatz. If I run into any trouble I’ll call you on my cell phone.” He activated his refrac again and faded away.
He circled around to the back of the hotel, scaled the wall, and looked for another way in. A door by the pool was unguarded, and another beside a parking lot where several Shrikes and heavily-built, four-wheel drive Bisons were parked. There was also a service entrance next to a loading dock. The doors by the pool and the parking lot failed to open with his lock pick kit, then he found the service entrance next to the loading dock, and it worked. He crept inside.
The kitchen he entered was dark, and he turned off his refrac to save power. He quickly moved into the empty halls illuminated by weak bulbs in the ceiling. The halls were lined with doors into hotel rooms. He poked his head into most of them to find them empty, so Izaak went up to the next floor. He stuck his head in the first door and there on the bed lay a hibernating vanguard. He checked more rooms and found the same thing. Many of them were occupied. It was like a barracks, thought Izaak. That’s why they were guarding it. Izaak continued to creep through the halls on each floor, finding the same on each floor, until he reached the top floor. Even in the stairwell, Izaak’s motion sensor started getting hits so he went to stealth mode, and emerged quietly from the stairwell. He peeked down the hall just in time to see two guards turn the corner at the far end. He jerked his head back and waited, watching their red blips draw near on his motion sensor.
“… is stupid,” he heard on one of them say as they drew near. He had a Middle Eastern accent. “Why do we have to stand here all night?” They stopped at the door.
“Because of that Spartan,” said the other in an accent with a hint of French. “The bastard killed me twice last week!” Hector grinned to himself. They were talking about him.
“We have not seen him since,” said the first, the Middle Eastern one. “I don’t know who’s more paranoid, al-Nib or that dirt-bag Mal-X. Ned al-Nib should not keep that Yank around.”
So Mal-X was an American, Hector realized. Was that why they didn’t like him?
“None of it will matter in a couple of weeks,” said Frenchy. “But until then, we have to keep Alanya and Ned al-Nib secure.”
“It is a waste of time.”
“You can tell Ned al-Nib that? You’re to stand guard here. I’m going over to the other stairs. If you see anything let us know. And stay at your controller this time. al-Nib isn’t paying you to kiss girls and get blow –”
“Alright, alright.”
“You can die in real life too, you know.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Izaak whispered noiselessly, and why is this floor more important than the others? he wondered. Hector wished Chaz was with him to hear it.
His phone buzzed beside him. There was a text from Chaz that read simply, ??? Hector picked up his cell phone and stabbed, moving 2 top floor into the keypad.
An instant later, his motion sensor showed a red dot moving away from him.
Izaak waited for what seemed like forever but when he checked it had only been about two minutes. The dot on the other side stayed motionless until it dropped from the tracker – which meant it wasn’t moving. Izaak opened the door a tiny bit and peered out. The guard was staring straight at him but didn’t move or do anything. A zombie. Perhaps he was kissing a girl as Frenchie had suspected, or something else. Izaak pushed the door open and removed the motionless character’s head with a single swipe of his assault rifle’s butt-mounted bayonet. Then he dragged the body – and the head – into the stairwell.
He activated one of Alkindi’s inventions that looked like a mechanical cockroach crossed with a robotic chipmunk. Izaak set it just outside the door then slaved its view to his HUD as Alkindi had showed him. He could now see everything it could see and hear anything it could hear, even though the view was like looking up from the ground through a toilet paper tube. He maneuvered it silently down the hall until it came to a corner. Around it, Izaak saw another vanguard guarding the other door. So he turned around and came back down the hall, past the stairwell, and went the other direction. Before he’d gone far, he began to hear voices. At first, he couldn’t hear what they were saying or tell where they were coming from. He pressed ahead cautiously when his phone suddenly buzzed. Chaz again, this time a call.
“Hey,” Hector answered, cradling the phone between his cheek and shoulder, which made it hard to hold his controller.
“What’s taking so long? What are you doing?” Chaz asked.
Izaak quickly described the scene then added: “I’ll get back to you,” and ended the call.
At the end of the hall was an open door with light spilling out of it. Izaak maneuvered the spybot carefully through the door, still picking up snippets of conversation but not anything he could understand.
Inside was a large, empty suite and on the walls were charts and diagrams with what looked like plans and lists of names, but it was too dark to read them. Pretty complex plan for newbs, he thought. He checked the first two side chambers and they were both empty and dark. Then he stopped. A small case had just panned across the field of view. Izaak maneuvered the spybot slowly back until it was filling the screen. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the portable slipgate. His heart started to pound. There was one more room in the suite and Izaak maneuvered the spybot until it saw light streaming through the door. As he drew closer to the final portal, the first clear statement Izaak heard was, “… in place for the final dress rehearsal.” He leaned in close to the TV and maneuvered the spybot closer to the open door.
“And when is that?” said someone else with a strong Middle Eastern accent.
Izaak panned the spybot’s camera-eyes. He held his breath until what he saw made him gasp. Mal-X, carrying Vera, was standing beside another figure clad head-to-toe in black. Right here, just a few feet away, was everything he was here for! They were talking to a third man in white with a long white beard. The same people, or rather characters, Izaak had seen in the mosque. He was just about to charge in and lay waste when Mal-X started talking again.
“A week from today, noon local Omega time. We should have at least two hundred extras. It will be the largest rehearsal we’ve conducted. The motorcade will start well outside town and follow the only suitable route up the peninsula. We should be able to refine our timing to ensure mission success.”
Hector listened, spellbound, scarcely daring to breath. Two hundred characters! They were doing a full scale dress rehearsal to prepare for a raid? These guys were serious!
“And you’ve checked security on all of them?” asked the one in white, with the heavy
accent. “They are all loyal?”
Security? Hector wondered. Serious was an understatement!
“Absolutely,” said the man in black. “We were forced to terminate several who were questionable. They already knew too much. They will not be missed.”
Hard core, Hector thought. Kicking people out of their clan.
“And Operation Scimitar?”
“Visas are arranged,” said the man in black. “Transportation is secured.”
“And what of the Spartans?” asked the leader, and Izaak listened closer. “Have you taken care of that problem?” Hector smiled broadly. They were talking about his clan!
“We haven’t seen them again,” said Mal-X. “Over a week and the Reavers report no contacts other than scarobs and thorks.”
“But what of this Izaak Ersatz?” asked black-beard and Hector gasped aloud. Now they were talking about him! “He’s been in the compound. What if he has seen us practicing?”
“A child, al-Nib. No more. He fancies himself a gamer only. It will mean nothing to him.” So the guy in the white cloak was Ned al-Nib, Izaak noted. His voice was somehow sinister and Izaak shuddered each time he spoke.
“I’d like to know how they found us in the first place?” asked al-Nib. “You said no one would come here.”
“Just random exploring,” said Mal-X and he shifted his feet. Izaak knew Mal-X was lying to his leader. Mal-X was the reason he’d come here. “We have security well in hand.”
“My butt you do,” Izaak whispered, as if they could hear him.
“I’m not taking any chances,” said Ned al-Nib, obviously unconvinced. “Make sure this GoreFiendHell gets whatever he wants, but I don’t want any more of them getting through. And if they are still here, I want them found. Is that clear, Malik? Pay him whatever you must, but we cannot tolerate intruders. Operation Scimitar is too important.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mal-X. “But GoreFiendHell assures me if they were still here, he would have found them already.”
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