by S. K. Holder
Connor reached for it without thinking.
‘I found it on her,’ said Lin. Does it mean anything to you?’
‘She works for the same company as my uncle. They make computer games. One of the games developer’s told me she had disappeared. She came here the same way I did, through the game, The Plague of Pyridian.’
Lin’s eyes widened with interest. ‘A computer game has been written about our world, and your uncle designed it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Connor admitted. He wished he knew more about his uncle’s role within the company. ‘I’m not even sure he owns the company. What did she tell you?’
‘Nothing of value. She has concussion. She mumbles in her sleep and when she wakes she screams. We can’t take her to the hospital wing. They won’t treat unmarked civilians. I’ve made an arrangement to have her moved to Hiburild. I’ve found a physician who will see her.’
Connor held his breath and crept over to the sleeping figure. Her leg was bound and her clothes were spattered with dried blood. The palm of her right hand was visible through the rock dust and dried blood on her skin. She had red blood and no Status Mark.
‘She’s not a Citizen,’ he said. ‘I thought everyone from Earth became Citizens when they came to the game worlds.’
‘Game worlds? This isn’t a game, Connor. What you see here is real and you’re a true Citizen as is your brother, your mother and your uncle. I thought Luke would have told you by now.’
‘But that’s impossible. If I was from another planet, I’d remember. There’s got to be some other explanation.’
‘But there’s not,’ said the Authoritative Voice.
Did that explain why Luke had been so desperate for him to forget about Narrigh and Odisiris? Had he known they were Citizens all along and that the other worlds were real? He shook the thoughts from his mind. They were ludicrous. Crazy. He had never been a Citizen before he went to Narrigh. He had no Worral Stone before then. No dreams. And when he returned to Narrigh, he was no longer a Citizen and nor was Luke. And what had happened to his regular clothes? He hadn’t changed out of them by himself.
‘Luke’s laptop came from Tridan Entertainment,’ said Connor. ‘Our mum asked our uncle to help her buy him a new computer for his birthday. He gave her one that belonged to the company.’
‘Then you are not here by accident. Luke suspected the laptop had something to do with transporting you to Narrigh, but at the time he wouldn’t have known the laptop came from Tridan Entertainment. He told me he would look into it on his return.’
‘Well I beat him to it,’ Connor said quietly.
The shift in Lin’s expression was subtle. If he blinked, he would have missed her look of anguish. It told him all he needed to know: Luke’s life was in danger and now so was his. He shouldn’t have been playing the game at all because he was underage; he had, in effect, taken Luke’s place.
‘Well I beat him to it,’ Connor said quietly.
The shift in Lin’s expression was subtle. If he blinked, he would have missed her look of anguish. It told him all he needed to know: Luke’s life was in danger and now so was his. He shouldn’t have been playing the game at all because he was underage; he had, in effect, taken Luke’s place.
Lin tucked Beth’s identity card up her sleeve. ‘I will need to speak with my commander. I shall return within the hour. There’s a washroom and an eating area through the doorway by the window. We have a little food and water here. You’ll have to make yourself comfortable on the floor or take the other side of the bed. It’s big enough for two. Whichever you prefer.’
‘I prefer not be here.’ He spoke loud enough for Beth to stir in her sleep. She gave a fearful moan. ‘What are you not telling me?’
‘I’ve had a long day and I’m not authorised to tell you anything. What I have told you, I have done so out of courtesy. I’m a Peltarck, not a Citizen. It’s not my place.’ She turned to leave. ‘I warned your brother this might happen. He wouldn’t listen.’
Connor removed his cloak and gloves. He then wandered into a sparse dining area lined with cabinets.
He helped himself to what looked like palatable food: a loaf of doughy salted bread and a cup of water from a drinks dispenser. He sat on one of the chairs surrounding a table top held in place by stiff wires bolted to the ceiling. He wolfed down the bread without pausing to taste it, gazing with disinterest at a mural of a fountain hung on the wall. He gulped back the water, and then returned to the main room where Beth lay sleeping.
He sat on the floor with his legs out and his head resting on the foot of the bed. He thought again about what Lin had told him. She said the worlds were real and he was a Citizen. The worlds were very real; there was no denying it. He had never heard of Odisiris until he travelled to Narrigh. The Traceless One, the soul-less entity, who had given him a past-telling had said that he had created a Dark Window inside his mind to hide all the visions that plagued him. Did those visions hold memories of his time in Odisiris? Could he find them again?
He closed his eyes. If he couldn’t find the answers on Pyridian, then there was another world he could try and he didn’t need a game to take him there…
He slipped through the key-hole-of-light and into the World of Dreams: a catalogue of worlds that showed the past, present and future.
He came upon blue skies, flourishing trees and a golden sun. He walked with a bag strapped across his shoulder; the same bag he carried in Narrigh. He wore the uniform of a Citizen fleet soldier. He was half way across the stone bridge, in Narrigh’s Levistan woodland when he heard something. He stopped for a moment and seeing no one continued on his way.
A low voice severed the silence. ‘I’m over here.’
He trudged through the long blades of grass and into a cluster of swaying shrubs to find the voice. Peering into the cluster, he found an old man scampering around on his hands and knees. His trousers were caked in dry mud. His gaunt face was streaked with dirt, as if done by his own hand. His hair fell dishevelled around his ears. His hands were wrapped in strips of soggy linen.
He rushed to help the old man to his feet. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No!’ he said. He pushed Connor away with brute strength. ‘I must not be seen.’
Connor sat near the old man. He slipped his bag from off his shoulder. He sunk back on his knees. The man looked quite odd scurrying around in the soil on all fours. Was he playing some sort of game?
The man put a sodden-bandaged hand to his ear. ‘Do you hear that?’
Connor heard only the gushing stream and the twittering of a few nesting birds. ‘Who are you? What are you doing in my dream?’
The man fixed him with golden brown eyes. ‘You need to be careful. There are people here who do not think the same way as you and I. You need to be wary. Always wary. My name is Issturo. What is yours?’
‘Connor. You’re not from Narrigh are you?’
‘What’s Narrigh?’
Connor thought he was in Narrigh. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Issturo watched him. ‘You must stop Daroh. He will bring chaos to this world. I have seen it.’
‘What?’ He had been thinking about the best way he could make himself wake up. If there was a key-hole-of-light to enter the World of Dreams; surely there was one to take him out.
‘You must stop him.’
Connor poked his chest. ‘Me? I’m just a kid. I’m not supposed to be here. And I don’t know anyone called Daroh. You’ve got me mixed up with someone else.’
He didn’t like this dream at all. His bag looked almost new, unblemished by the drudgeries of his journey in Narrigh. He peeked inside it and found all the possessions he had carried with him were gone and yet the bag still felt heavy.
‘Is this about the Shard? Because I don’t have it any more.’
The old man frowned. ‘What Shard is that?’
‘This isn’t the right game,’ he said to himself.
Issturo sat up and gripped Connor’s arm tightly. Intent on securing
his attention. ‘Do you accept this mission?’
The answer emerged between his clamped teeth. ‘No. I’m not here for a mission, I’m just here exploring. And you’re getting in my way.’
Connor didn’t want to waste his time on a meaningless dream. He needed his dream to be set in Pyridian, not in Narrigh.
Issturo searched in the grass. His hand closing around a small bundle of linen snared in a nettle bush. ‘Ah, there it is,’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought I’d lost it. Here take this.’ He thrust the bundle into Connor’s hands. ‘Open it.’
Connor did as he was told. Gingerly, he lifted the folds of fabric. Inside, he found his Worral Stone. ‘I never gave this to you,’ he snapped. ‘Stop snooping through my things.’ He hoped Issturo hadn’t taken anything else.
Issturo squatted on his heels. He peered through the shrubs towards the stream. When he turned back again, his face had crumbled. He looked haggard. Torn. He laid his hand on Connor’s shoulder. ‘You know what you must do.’ He handed him another bundle much bigger than the first. ‘Here is a change of clothes. Trust your instincts and you’ll be safe.’
Connor gazed at the linen parcel he had placed on his lap. He felt the anguish take root inside him. ‘This had better not be real because I’m busy. I don’t want you in my dream any more. Go away.’
‘But I’m not in your dream,’ said Issturo, patting him on the back, ‘you are in mine. I will see you again.’ He then broke his cover, and racing to the bridge, leapt into the water−
A piercing scream woke him. He shot to his feet and spun around. In spite of his cryptic dream, he had not forgotten Beth was in the room. She clasped her wounded leg and stared at him, her face a mask of sheer terror.
‘It’s okay,’ said Connor, swallowing hard. Fresh blood seeped from the bandage wrapped around her leg. The sight of it made him feel queasy. He had an awful feeling she wasn’t going to make it out of Pyridian dead or alive. ‘I’m fro-from London. Same as you.’
She relaxed a little and flopped back on the bed whimpering. ‘I can’t feel my leg. I just want to go home. Please tell her to let us go.’
‘She will,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll be going home soon.’
He padded across the room to greet her, his shaking hand outstretched. He could hardly bring himself to look upon her drawn face. ‘I’m Connor.’
She took one look at the palm of his right hand, gave a fierce scream, and then lapsed back into unconsciousness.
TWENTY
The chinking of keys interrupted Ted’s sleep. He woke up with a biscuit wrapper stuck to the side of his face. His cup of coffee spilled across one corner of the table. Its contents had made a puddle on the floor. The good thing was he was still in the cafeteria, the bad thing: Steve Lepton stood on the other side of the doors, in his designer suit and gold cufflinks, flicking through a bunch of keys in his hand.
Ted scrambled to attention, slamming the laptop shut and setting the empty coffee cup upright. He stuffed the biscuit wrapper inside it. He flinched when the doors swung open and Steve marched in.
Ted crushed the coffee cup in his hand, squeezing the last drops of coffee onto the white-tiled floor. How was he going to talk his way out of this one?
Steve stared at the spilled coffee dotting the floor. ‘Why’s the door locked?’
‘I-I fell asleep. One of the security guards must have thought no one was in here and locked me in.’ It would have sounded more convincing if he hadn’t positioned himself and the laptop directly in front of the glass doors where even a mouse could have seen him.
Steve threw something at him. Too scared to catch it, Ted let it drop to the floor. It turned out to be his mobile phone. He wished he’d caught it; now the screen had cracked. He hoped the battery had died before Steve had had a chance to go through his text messages.
Steve’s eyes slid to the laptop. It had Luke’s football sticker on the bottom right-hand corner. His hallmark. Ted gulped and dropped his coffee cup.
‘Before you say anything, he was in here with me.’
‘You mean Luke?’
Ted did an impression of a nodding dog. ‘Yep.’
‘You bought him into the basement?’
Steve had reduced his voice to a sharp whisper, which meant he was particularly mad and Ted needed to be especially careful with his lies. ‘I found him down here spying. You really need to get some security cameras fitted on this floor because there aren’t any working cameras on this floor − are there?’
‘Where is he now?’
Ted patted the laptop and gave him a wink. ‘Where do you think?’
Steve adjusted his cufflinks. He looks exceptionally dapper today, Ted thought. He always did when he had scheduled important meetings with clients. ‘Where the hell is he Ted?’
Steve hadn’t understood what Ted meant when he had patted the laptop and it occurred to him that it didn’t work the way he thought it did. Luke had suggested the same thing hadn’t he?
‘Luke played the game and now he’s gone. He just vanished. He was sat right there.’ He pointed at the chair parked in front of the laptop. ‘And then he just kind of evaporated.’ That sounded better. More believable.
‘Evaporated?’ said Steve. He crossed his arms. ‘You know you weren’t supposed to be around when he used the laptop. You do know that right?’
How would he know that? Steve never told him to make himself scarce once he handed the laptop over. Though in hindsight, it wouldn’t have been the worst idea.
‘Why would Luke play The Plague of Pyridian in the cafeteria basement Ted? Did you tell him what happened to his brother? Did you tell him about me?’
‘No. I didn’t tell him anything. I didn’t even tell him Connor was missing. I think he must have found out from the sch-school. Luke wanted to play and threatened to call his uncle if I told anyone what he was up to−’
‘We couldn’t have him telling his uncle could we, Ted?’
‘No we couldn’t.’
Steve took a sluggish look over his shoulder.
Ted imagined his boss was making sure the two of them were alone so he could kill him. As far as Steve was concerned Ted had done his job so he no longer had any use for him. And he supposed it could have been that way if he wasn’t good at coding and being one step ahead of the game, in order to protect himself from unique situations like this. He knew his flaws: socially awkward and clumsy. He didn’t know how to tie a neck tie, which is why he brought the ready to wear kind. He did, however, know how to make himself indispensable to the company. An asset. You could always rely on the good geek Ted to get the job done. ‘Call Ted, he’ll know what to do.’
‘There’s a problem,’ said Ted. The problem was that Steve had underestimated him.
‘Problem?’ Steve cocked his head to one side as if trying to get his head around the concept of a problem. Steve Lepton didn’t believe in problems, only resolutions. The sign above his office door said as much.
‘I take it you’re not expecting them back?’
Steve stayed silent. He had a dazed look on his face.
Ted didn’t want to take these measures, but Steve had left him no choice. He had forced him down a path of deception and lies. ‘I had to put in a safeguard,’ he explained. ‘Two in fact. Just in case.’ He didn’t know what Steve had in his pockets. He fancied he might have a gun, or a rope, or a knife. Or nothing at all. The man looked capable of murdering him with his bare hands.
Steve stalked towards him like a panther on the hunt. Ted slammed himself up against the cafeteria table making it shake and screech. Steve nudged him aside and flipped the laptop open. He hit the power button. The laptop failed to start up.
‘Battery is dead.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I drafted three emails to leave here within the hour, one to the police, one to my brother in Texas and the last one to Mr Brailey, telling them what’s−’
Steve raised his arm and elbowed him in the side of the head.
>
Ted fell sideways onto the floor. He jerked his legs, smearing the spilled coffee into his trousers. Black and white spots flashed before his eyes. The piercing pain in his head shot from one side to the other and back again.
Ted kept his eyes on Steve as he rose to his feet and Steve kept his eyes on him. ‘I’d be careful if I were you. You don’t want to give me brain damage. I could make the emails go away, if you put a little something in my account.’
Steve studied Ted as if he was seeing someone new standing before him, someone formidable Ted hoped. Someone who couldn’t be crossed.
‘And the second safeguard?’ Steve’s voice sounded strained.
There was only one safeguard. Ted hadn’t drafted any emails. He had been too busy snoozing and resting his battered foot. ‘I’ve added a virus to The Quest of Narrigh. You’ll have to find the world’s best hacker to get the bug off, or me. The virus will wipe everything from a player’s computer with one trigger. Obviously, I’m not going to tell you what that trigger is. Things won’t look good for Tridan Entertainment if subscribers trace the virus to this company.’ He whistled through his teeth. ‘The other shareholders are gonna be livid.’
Steve looked as if he wanted to give him another elbowing. He sucked in his cheeks and clenched his fists in frustration. He pointed his finger at Ted. That was as far as him getting his point across went.
Ted knew he had won. He took a gamble and made it all the way to the finish. Steve couldn’t touch him now. He would hold the virus over his head at every opportune moment. That virus wouldn’t be coming off until he was on a remote island where no one could find him.
‘You made me do this,’ said Ted. He thought he should let Steve know the reason he had resorted to such extreme measures. His million dollar boss didn’t have to worry about debt collectors on his doorstep. He should never have made him wait in line with everyone else. ‘All I asked you for was a bit of money. What’s wrong with that?’
‘How much money would you like me to put in your account?’
