Shadows

by Terry Schott

  They rode in silence for the remainder of the trip. A half hour later, a sign on the road announced that they were entering Wallaceton. Dawn felt a thrill of excitement. She was finally getting her chance to enter the mysterious town where no one played SHEPHERDS, and whence no residents ever came to their city. Harry entered the town and slowly cruised down the main street.

  "It's a small little town," Sam observed. "Old-fashioned stores on either side of the street. Is that a small single-screen movie theatre over there?"

  "Yes," Harry said. "It does feel like we've stepped back in time a decade or so. The population is just under 15,000, so it would never be confused for a bustling modern city."

  Dawn watched people walk along the streets. "They dress modern, and I see some of them with cell phones. They don't live that far back in the past. Are all of these people part of our Family?"

  Harry laughed softly and shook his head. "Not at all. I've only seen one or two cousins and a great aunt so far. The majority of people are regular folks."

  "Are there any big factories or anything here?" Sam asked.

  "A few," Harry said, "but most residents work in a specific industry."

  "What industry is that?"

  "SHEPHERDS."

  "What do you mean? I thought no one here plays the game? My ansible shows no targets to shear. This town doesn't even appear on the grid."

  "No one here plays." Harry pointed at a large white building with huge industrial cooling units covering the entire roof, but very few small windows or doors. "There are hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings all over town similar to that one. Each one is a server, filled from floor to ceiling with supercomputers. This is where SHEPHERDS originates. The entire game is run from Wallaceton."

  "What?" Dawn and Sam exclaimed in unison.

  Harry smiled. "That's right, the entire game is designed, developed, implemented, run, and monitored out of this small town. Globally."

  "The Thorne Family invented the game?"

  Harry didn't answer.

  "Dad?" Sam asked.

  Harry sighed, "You're gonna find out about this soon enough," he said. "I may as well tell you before anyone else does, not that it's a big deal."

  "Tell us what?"

  "It was me," Harry said. "I invented the game."

  32

  Harry chuckled. "So it is actually possible to shush you both? Nice to know." They could only nod dumbly in response.

  Harry pulled over to the curb and put the car in park, then turned around in his seat to face them. "The long version is boring, so here's the condensed form. Sam, you were born when I was twenty. Tension between the Families was extremely high. I'm sure that your mother and I getting married didn't help things, but it was bad all over the world. You were only a few years old when your grandfather asked me to come back to work for the Family. Things got better, at least from the Thorne point of view, and the improvements continued for almost a decade. That was just as computers were going mainstream, and I started programming in my spare time."

  "Computer programming in your spare time," Sam laughed. "That's what people dedicate their entire lives and working time to now."

  "Yes," Harry shrugged, "but in the early days, computers were just toys that most adults did without. Even once computers gained respect for their usefulness as accounting and bookkeeping tools, games were still scoffed at."

  "You changed that?" Dawn guessed.

  "Not really," Harry said. "At first, for me, games were excellent ways to learn how to code, and that was all. Then, a few years after I had started fiddling around with them, I travelled to the now famous part of the world where all the emerging computer geniuses appeared to be gathering ."

  "Did you hang out with any famous names we would recognize?" Dawn asked.

  Harry smiled. "All of them."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. We lived out there for a few years, which I know you both remember."

  They nodded.

  "Family animosity had become a real problem, and it was leading to more killings than usual. We allowed ourselves to get caught up in a bloody war that threatened to destroy all of us. I came up with an idea to stop it."

  "The Game," Sam said.

  "SHEPHERDS," Harry nodded. "I designed the concept, and the heads from all Families met. They decided to give it a try, and we all began to work together to build a game that would satisfy our competitive skills while allowing us to earn substantial income."

  "How does that happen?" Dawn asked. "How is it possible for us to earn income from playing the game?"

  "I'm sure you'll find out all about that during this visit. Let me know if you don't, and I'll tell you."

  "Fair enough," Dawn said.

  "I assembled a team, and then we spent the next few years building the game framework. It went live and we all got to work, spying and shearing and earning virtual money that was converted to real cash."

  "I think you glossed over the last part pretty quickly there, Dad," Sam said.

  "That's because I'm certain that your cousins, aunts, and uncles will fill you in during our visit." Harry turned around and put the car in drive. "We'll be there in a few minutes."

  "Which house is it?" Dawn asked.

  "None of these," Harry shook his head. "Your grandparents would consider those a step above camping."

  Sam laughed. "The smallest house in this neighbourhood is more than four times bigger than ours!"

  Harry smiled and nodded. "We are on the outer edge of town. The main Family house is outside town a few minutes. You'll see what I mean when we get there."

  The roads turned from paved to dirt. After a few minutes, a large house appeared in the distance.

  "Oh, wow," Dawn said. "They live in a castle."

  A great sprawling house, similar to the gigantic manors of English royalty, sat on a raised area of land. Harry turned into a driveway that was blocked by a large wrought-iron gate, complete with a manned guard station off to the side.

  A pleasant-looking young man exited the guard station and approached the car. He wore a black military-style outfit with a handgun strapped to his hip, and he approached Harry's window. "Good morning, Mr. Thorne, your parents are expecting you. I'll inform them you are here, and they'll meet you at the front door of the estate."

  "Good morning, John," Harry said. "The front door, huh? We don't see that often, I would guess."

  "No, sir." John's eyes flicked to the back seat, trying to get a glimpse without being too obvious. "Enjoy your visit, sir," he said, then turned around and walked back to the gate house, waving his hand at the man sitting inside.

  The gates opened and Harry drove through. Tall, perfectly manicured trees lined both sides of the long drive, each mirroring its neighbour in both height and shape. Behind the trees were large fences enclosing lush green fields. Dawn saw horses grazing in the distance. It felt like entering a movie about royalty.

  The front area was a big, paved, round driveway, and Harry pulled directly up to the front door where around a dozen people were standing.

  Harry stopped the car and put it into park. "Time to meet the Family."

  His tone sounded more like one would announce it was time to get a root canal.

  33

  Kerstin turned the corner, crossed the street, and entered the used bookstore. The door opened with a familiar chime.

  "Hi, Kerstin," said a smiling lady behind the cash register. "Come to buy, today, or just read?"

  "Maybe a little bit of both, Mrs. Jackson," Kerstin said. "I'm meeting up with Sarah-Marie, is she here yet?"

  "She's in the reading room." Mrs. Jackson nodded toward the back of the store. "Been here for about fifteen minutes or so."

  "Great, thanks." Kerstin walked toward the back of the narrow store, scanning the twelve-foot-high shelves for interesting new books. A couple caught her attention, and she stopped to pluck them from the shelves.

  The reading room was a cozy little place at the back of the sto
re, equipped with comfy chairs and couches. Mrs. Jackson liked the atmosphere that readers brought to a bookstore like hers, so she made it possible for customers to do more than just browse and buy.

  Sarah-Marie looked up from her book and nodded. "Good morning. I got here a little early to try and relax."

  "Did it work?" Kerstin asked.

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "You stressed out?"

  "No, not really," said Sarah-Marie half-heartedly.

  "What do you have to be stressed about? Now that you're a Shepherd, money shouldn't be a problem. Don't you have more free time and resources than you ever expected at this age?"

  "Yes," Sarah-Marie frowned. "It's just...I don't think I like playing the game anymore."

  "What!" Kerstin's control slipped. She laughed aloud.

  "It's boring," Sarah-Marie said. "The same thing every day. I get up and go farm the sites, which takes a good chunk of time. It was exciting at first, but it's the same area for me to walk around, and the same targets to shear. Over and over, every single day."

  Kerstin walked to the small cappuccino machine, another perk provided by Mrs. Jackson, and started to make herself a drink. "Look. You and I have played lots of other video games, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Name me one other game where, eventually, the same thing doesn't happen."

  "Well..."

  Kerstin laughed. "Exactly! You can't, because every game becomes about farming, doing repetitive tasks to either level up or earn game credit so that you can buy cool new items. After a while, the excitement of games fade, but we still keep playing them. How many years did we play Fairy Conquest?"

  Sarah-Marie's frown turned into a grudging smile. "You know we both still play Fairy Conquest," she said, "but that's different."

  "Yes," Kerstin agreed. "Instead of getting paid real cash, each month we fork over $13.99 to the company so that we can keep playing it."

  "Some people make real money from that game."

  "Millions of people make money from that game! They gather components and then craft digital items, and then trade the items with other players for real money. Players also earn digital cash and sell it to other players for real money. There are a ton of players who make real money from Fairy Conquest and every other digital game out there. Did you know that there is a money index where rich old businessmen invest real money to buy shares of digital game money?"

  "Are you serious?"

  "Absolutely," Kerstin nodded. "They trade the digital cash just like it's real. It makes perfect sense, really, because the paper money we use is no more real than the game currencies. When two people agree that something is of value, then suddenly it is."

  "Well, I don't make money playing Fairy Conquest," Sarah-Marie said. "I just play it because it's fun. My avatar can be modified to look really cool."

  Kerstin laughed and pointed at her own face and body, "With the money I'm earning from SHEPHERDS, I am dressing this avatar much cooler than I used to."

  Sarah-Marie laughed. "We aren't avatars, silly."

  "How do you know that? What if, right now, there is some kid playing us, moving us around in a digital simulation and earning points and credits as we get experience?"

  "It would be a pretty boring game," Sarah-Marie said thoughtfully, "and whoever is playing me is not doing a very good job!"

  Kerstin laughed. "You and I both know of games where people play at having a second life which is much like this one. I don't get it, but millions are paying monthly fees to play."

  "Yeah, you're right," Sarah-Marie admitted.

  "Life is boring, and as games get more realistic, doesn't it make sense that there will be times when they are also boring?"

  "Well, I'm tired of being stuck at this level in SHEPHERDS."

  "Ahh." Kerstin nodded, putting on a sympathetic smile.

  "Seriously. Take Fairy Conquest, or any other game that we've ever played. They all have a large online community that shares experiences and strategies with each other. If a dungeon or quest line is too difficult to figure out, then I can go read how to do it from hundreds of sites set up by people who have faced the same problems and overcome them. I can't do that with SHEPHERDS, though, because it's such a secret game. There is no useful mention of it on the Internet."

  "I see what you're getting at," Kerstin said. "You're tired of being stuck at your level and want to do more, but you have no clue how."

  "Yeah, that about sums it up. Like I said, I'm bored."

  "Can you do me a favour?"

  Sarah-Marie shrugged. "Sure, what do you have in mind?"

  "Keep playing until we get together again. Give me a day or two so that I can ask around and maybe find what you're looking for. I've been wondering the same things, and it looks like this is going to come up more often as we keep playing."

  Sarah-Marie laughed. "Oh, I'll keep playing. The money is too good to stop. I make more money each week than my dad does, and he gets up at five in the morning and doesn't come home until six at night. I get up around eleven, and my rounds are completed by two. I can't quit, but I wanted to share with you how it's not as fun as it was in the beginning."

  "I feel you," Kerstin said. "I've had those moments too. Games should be fun, so let me see what I can find out and get back to you."

  "Thanks," Sarah-Marie said. "Worth asking questions to see if things can get better, right?"

  Kerstin nodded. "Absolutely."

  34

  "Which one is Grandpa?" Dawn looked at the group of people standing in front of the estate.

  "None of them," Harry said. "We will meet your grandparents inside, as befits their station. And don't call them Grandpa and Grandma. It is Grandfather and Grandmother."

  "Okay," Dawn shrugged.

  Her father turned to look at her until she met the stern eyes. "No, it's not 'okay' accompanied by a shrug. I've taught you both how to respect your elders and speak properly when the occasion calls for it. This is the one occasion that definitely calls for it. There's no sense in starting off on the wrong foot because of a careless comment or poor manners."

  "I understand, Daddy." Both straightened up a bit.

  Harry looked at them, then nodded approval. His voice softened. "Just be your best-behaved selves. Everything will be fine."

  Harry opened the door and walked to the passenger side. He stood and waited for Sam and Dawn to get out, then gave them a reassuring wink before turning to approach the waiting group. A handsome, late-thirtyish man stepped forward as Harry got close. "Welcome home, brother," he said as he embraced Harry.

  Dawn turned her head toward Sam and saw his eyebrows raise.

  "It's good to be home," Harry said, returning the embrace. To Dawn's eyes, they seemed fond of each other.

  The man turned to face them. "Finally we get to meet the two of you! My name is William, and you must be Dawn and Samson. Let me formally welcome the both of you to your ancestral home."

  Sam extended his hand, but William laughed and pulled him close. "We don't shake hands with Family!" he said as he gave Sam a quick but affectionate hug. "Your old man likely has you all nervous about meeting us, doesn't he?"

  William released Sam and strode toward Dawn to scoop her up in a hug of her own. He was about Harry's height and build. As he released Dawn, he said, "There. You will need to hug about thirty or forty more people, and then you can call it a day."

  The group behind him laughed and moved to surround the kids. Each person introduced him or herself, embracing both, then stepping back in favour of the next relative. This is surreal, thought Dawn. For my entire life, I've had no extended family. In a few minutes, I suddenly have hundreds.

  When the greetings were complete, William stepped forward again. "Your grandfather has instructed me to bring you to the library. If you'll follow me, please."

  William walked toward the main door. Harry, Dawn, and Sam followed.

  The front entrance was an immense open area with polished marble floors, for
ty-foot ceilings, and dozens of beautiful paintings adorning the walls. William stopped and looked at Harry. "He's asked to meet them without you, if that's okay?"

  Harry clenched his teeth together, but he smiled and nodded. "Of course. I expected he would want it that way. I'll go find Mother and pay my respects." Harry grinned and patted Sam on the back. "Just be polite, and try to enjoy meeting the old man. Don't ask too many questions, if you can help it," he added with a glance at Dawn.

  William laughed. "This Family is used to questions. Don't worry about asking the old man too many, Dawn. I'm sure he will be fine if you do."

  Dawn smiled, but remembered her father's orders and nodded slightly as she followed her uncle. . Good girl, thought Harry.

  The walk through the immense manor to the library took over fifteen minutes, with William stopping now and then to share a piece of Family history as they would pass a particular painting or tapestry. Each subject was a famous ancestor that had lived long ago and contributed to the Family fortune in extraordinary ways. By the time they arrived in front of the tall, ornate wooden doors of the library, both of them were in awe.

  "Sorry for the quick tour. Father didn't want to wait all afternoon to meet you. I wasn't allowed to become a Family historian, but that hasn't stopped me from spending my spare time learning it."

  "The tour was wonderful, Uncle," Dawn said. "I would love to take the longer version when time permits."

  "Thank you, Niece." William smiled, a genuine and infectious beam. "I should very much enjoy conducting that tour." He put his hand on the iron-wrought handle to the library door and pulled gently. The door swung open with perfect ease despite its thick oak massiveness. "Now let's get this over with, shall we?"

  They entered a gigantic hall filled with the rich smells of old paper, leather covers, and dark wood floors and bookshelves that started at the floor and extended all the way to a ceiling fifty feet high. A second level circled the entire room's perimeter, and both floors had old wooden ladders mounted to rails attached to the bookshelves. Large leather chairs and couches were scattered throughout the library, and a few tables had chess and other classic board games set up. As they continued toward the back of the library, they saw an opulent bar making up the entire back wall, with shelves full of bottles of every shape, size, and colour. Tables and lush chairs gave the bar area the appearance of some gentlemen's club from a movie, adjacent to but not quite within the shelving and reading area of the vast library.