“Mom, can you and Dad wait in the van please?” I called back to her.
“We’ll take care of them, Mr. Lennox,” one of the aides said with a shaky voice.
“Let’s take a look at these assholes. I want to see if they have that tattoo you talked about,” Chip said as he nodded to the corpses of the men at the roadblock.
The two of us walked the sixty feet down the road to the carnage Chip’s team had wrought on the pack of attackers. There were a few other snipers checking out the bodies, and I noticed that each of their rifle barrels had a massive silencer attached.
No wonder I hadn’t heard any gunshots.
“You said you saw it on the neck?” Chip asked as he knelt down to the first corpse.
“Yeah.” I exhaled and felt my shoulders start to shake. Fuck. It was one thing to try to kill me, but these assholes had come after my parents.
How had they known I was going to be here?
“Found it,” Chip said after a few seconds. “This one is behind the ear a bit. Or at least, this looks like it. What do you think?”
“Yeah, that is it. Looks like a star or something,” I confirmed after I knelt next to my friend.
“Hmmm. Could it be a flower? Looks kind of like one of those old Japanese tattoos?”
“I’m not sure. It looks too simple to be a flower, but maybe that is the point?” I mused. There was a burst of air behind me, and I turned to see the three jet pods hovering fifty feet above us. The guard that had sat in the shotgun seat was waving his arms toward the craft and pointing for them to land on the street.
“Can you search these assholes? See if you find anything?” Chip asked the pair of men standing near us. The both nodded and then my friend motioned for me to walk with him back toward the van.
“Police are probably going to be here in a minute or two,” he said as he handed his sniper rifle to someone that walked by him. “We need to get you and your parents back to Arnacript. Or the cops might want to question you all night. Hey, George!” my friend called out, and another big military looking man I recognized walked over from one of the groups searching the back pair of hole filled SUVs.
“What’s up, Chip?”
“I’m going to go with Leo and his parents back to Arnacript in a jet pod. Can you work with the remaining guard to get our stories straight for when the police get here?”
“You got it.” The man nodded and then gave me a wink. “Hey Champ, good to see you again.” I realized that George was one of the newer guards that Chip had hired, and I had seen him at the funeral and Dinah’s house a few days ago.
“Good to see you, too. Thanks for the—”
“Don’t mention it, Champ. Just doing my job. Why don’t you all get out of here? I’ve got all the documents saying I’m in your employment. I’ll work with the police and the FBI when they get here.”
“Thanks,” I said again.
“Can you handle your parents by yourself?” Chip asked as he began to peel layers off of his outfit.
“Yeah. I think. I didn’t want to take a jet pod because I thought it would freak them out, but they are in a really good mood today. So I believe we’ll be alright for the trip. If you are with me, we can each restrain one if they get out of control.”
“Got it.” He was wearing is usual khaki pants and polo shirt under his gear, and I saw him adjust his pistol at his belt before he nodded to me.
“Mom, Dad, we are going to take one of these jet pods home, okay?” I said as I poked my head into the van.
“Okay, Leo. Jax is going with us? Do we need to swing by the mall first?” My mom asked as she pointed to Chip. Both men were of similar height, but my best friend was a good twenty years younger than my bodyguard and had golden blond hair instead of the dirty blond that Chip had.
“No Mom, we have candy at home. Let’s go.” I beckoned to her and then breathed a sigh of relief when she stepped out of the fucked up van.
“Dad, let’s go,” I said after I had handed my mom off to Chip to escort.
“No.”
“No?” I asked with a sigh.
“No. I want to go home,” he sighed.
“Dad, we are going home.” It looked like one of the aides was going to try to say something, but I shook my head at him.
“The Bronx?”
“It will be like Flight of the Navigator. Did you see the jet pods?” I forced a smile to my lips and then nodded out toward the pod Chip was helping my mother get into.
The reference to the old movie got him interested, and he moved his long legs out of the van to look at the futuristic looking craft.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. Let’s go join Mom.” I gently wrapped my fingers around his arm and gave him a small tug toward the pod.
“Will your sister be at home?” he asked after a few steps.
“Yeah. Okay. Sure.” I hated lying to him, but I just needed to get him in the fucking pod and out of here before the police arrived.
Or more of these assassins came back.
“How is your mother doing, Jax?” my mom asked as Chip buckled her into the chair.
“She is fine, Ma’am.” The ex-SEAL didn’t seem to care that she thought he was my other friend. I was sure the guy had dealt with worse shit in his life.
I buckled my dad in as soon as I could and then I looked out to the two aides that had followed me. The men were both in obvious shock, and for a second, I wondered why I wasn’t freaking out as much as I should have been. Then I glanced back at Chip. The man looked completely un-affected by the violence he had just wrought. I guess one got used to real life combat after a while, just like one got used to virtual combat.
“Take the other pod,” I told the aides. The nodded drunkenly and then walked quickly from the camera-shutter door of my aircraft.
“Hey, Champ. I’m going to close the door. Please sit down,” Renee’s half-Californian half-Texan accent came over the speakers of the plane.
“On it. Thanks Renee. I’m really happy to hear your voice.”
“Awwww shit— I mean Awww yeah. Champ, Ms. Zerne gave me approval to use the guns. I was kinda itching to blast some motherfuckers—I mean ‘hostiles’ to the moon.” The doors of the pod camera-shuttered closed.
“I like this girl,” Chip said as the pod lifted into the sky smoothly.
“Aww. Thanks Mr. Tough Looking Dude. You aren’t so shabby yourself.”
“Wow! This is just like the movie, Leo. Honey, do you see this?” my dad asked.
“It’s too fast.” My mom’s face was the color of ashen clay.
“I can slow down a bit. Sorry about that,” Renee said over the speaker. The aircraft’s flight was incredibly smooth, but I did notice the swirl of New England landscape slow some below us.
Then we were over Arnacript’s fortress, and the pod was lowering into the maws of the hanger.
“Thank you for flying Air Arnacript,” Renee’s voice began her canned speech a few seconds after we landed, but I was too busy getting my dad out of the pod, and I kind of tuned it out. The travel time had been stupid quick, and I was kind of kicking myself for thinking we needed to go by van. Of course, I hadn’t known that my parent’s condition was going to be so good today. It could have easily have been a really bad day, and the flight in the pod would have shocked them terribly.
“Leo, are you okay?” I felt Zarra’s arms wrap around my shoulders as soon as I got my dad down the pod ramp.
“Yeah. We are fine, just shaken up a bit.” I returned her hug and tried to keep my voice calm. The beautiful woman was surrounded by dozens of her security staff, and I didn’t want to make a scene in the hanger while her people watched.
But she was going to have to give me some damn answers.
Chapter 2
“What are you implying?” Zarra’s eyes narrowed with her question.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m just asking if there is anything you know about these assassins that you aren’t telling me. Thi
s is the second time they have tried to kill me, and my fucking parents are involved.”
“Why would you think I would know anything about this?” She crossed her arms and her purple eyes seemed to glow.
“Because none of this shit started happening until I met you, Zarra.” I sighed after I said the words and I tried to calm myself.
We were alone in one of the gray featureless conference rooms, and I forced myself to sit.
“So guilty by correlation? Come on, Leo. You are just angry. I understand. I’m angry as well. I do not want you to be in danger. I do not want your parents to be in danger. I do not want my employees to be in danger, let alone dead. There are eight people dead today that have families. I—” she stopped talking and covered her face with her hands for a few seconds.
“Shit, Zarra. I’m sorry.” I felt my emotions swell in my chest and threaten to flow out of my mouth.
“It isn’t your fault. Just the circumstances. Here, look at this.” She pulled a digi-tablet out of her nice looking pin-striped suit, pressed on the screen a few times, and then slid it across the table to me. I caught it in my hands and then let out a whistle.
Astafar LLC’s stock was in a free fall. It appeared to have lost over thirty billion dollars worth of value in the last day.
And the day before that hadn’t looked any better.
“Shit,” I said.
“Yep,” she answered. “I’m guessing this is why people are trying to kill you.”
“I don’t get it. I know people were saying that my retirement would impact the game, but why this much? You would think that people would be really interested in seeing who the next champion is going to be. For fuck’s sake, I haven’t even released my retirement statement. How does anyone know?” It felt like my vision was spinning. President Arnesto wasn’t going to be ruined by this, but I couldn’t believe how bad the stock graph looked.
“I doubt anyone knows for sure. I could have a leak in my staff, but I’ve had everyone that works with you stay on campus until you made the announcement, and I warned them that if I caught them sending messages to anyone letting them know you had agreed, I would fire them and then send the SEC their way. They haven’t made a peep.” The dark-haired woman shrugged, and then she leaned back in the chair.
“Then how do they know?” I saw a link under the stock quotes that had my name, and I clicked on it to see a bunch of posted articles about my retirement.
“It isn’t that they know. It is that there is a rumor, and you aren’t denying it, and no one has seen you. Could be that your friends let on, or your trainers, but I spoke to your lawyer this morning, and she had given them the same warning that I gave to my people.”
“But even if I did quit. Who cares? Next championship will be more interesting. Fans had to be getting bored with me winning all the time. I was getting so bored with it.”
“Ha.” She let out a short laugh and gave me a slight smile. “I think you fail to realize how big of a deal you are. Maybe you looked at my contract and thought I was giving you too much money, but I’ve done plenty of research on you, Leo. I got a deal when you agreed to join me. People really love you, and if they think that you’ve left Astafar Unlimited to play another game, they are going to wonder why. There are hundreds of thousands of conversations going on right now about my company, and what you are working on with us, and you haven’t even gone public yet.” The beautiful woman smiled and her earlier sadness seemed to fade a bit. “I absolutely didn’t plan for wealthy investors to try to kill you.”
“Is that what you think this is? Why would they want to kill me?”
“I’m not sure, of course, but Leo Lennox dead at the hand of psychos means that Astafar Unlimited is still a good game. Leo Lennox quitting to play a newer, better game means that Astafar Unlimited is not a good game anymore. My company is privately owned. These assholes can’t get a piece of it.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“It is all about the money,” she sighed.
“Yeah. It is. With you as well.” I regretted the words almost as soon as I said them.
“That isn’t fair, Leo,” Zarra groaned.
“You’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t mean—”
“You know I want this treatment for people. I do want to make money, of course. A lot of money. If we can make this game work, I’d want to give away the treatment for free.”
“Wait. Really? You would do that?” I asked.
“I would like to. Depends on how much revenue we make with the game aspect, and how easily we can scale the VRIU equipment. This is maybe ten years down the road. I didn’t want to talk to you about it. I just really want you to figure out how to make the game aspects better.”
“How would you even implement that? There are so many people with Alzheimer’s. It would be—”
“Leo,” she interrupted me with a gentle smile. “It isn’t something you have to worry about now. I would love your ideas about it once we get the game up and profitable. I just want you to focus on what I need you to do.”
“Got it.” I nodded and felt some of the stress leave my shoulders.
“I’m going to ask Mr. Smith if he’ll work for us,” she said suddenly. “Do you think he will agree?”
“Yes. That would be great.” I felt more of the stress lift from my shoulders.
“I’ve been debating it for the last few days, but I thought we’d be okay if I just beefed up our own security. I feel like a fool, and should have guessed these people would come after you.”
“How could you have known?”
“I’m worried they are going to try and attack you here.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to sound like ahhh… I… You see, I don’t want to lose you. I— well—ummm.” Zarra’s cheeks turned a bit red.
Her embarrassment surprised me some. She always seemed so collected, and I thought she had used her charm like someone flipped a switch. I knew I was more than little attracted to the beautiful woman, but I’d been trying to fight my desires so that we could keep our relationship professional.
Our eyes met across the table and I guessed that it was going to be impossible for us to stay away from each other.
“I should…”
“Yeah. Ummm, go check on your parents. Maybe have lunch with them? When are you logging in next?” she asked.
“I’ll go once I get them settled.”
“Are you still with the dwarves in the Laven Mountains?” she asked.
“Yep. I spent a huge chunk of time yesterday with the loremaster. We were planning on leaving today. They have given us a wagon, and they said they will escort us out of the mountains and into Cutno’s valley.”
“Then you are going to Arnicoal?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’ve got a good lead on the first artifact. The loremaster said that there is a group of rich aristocrats in the city; one of them should have an artifact, or at least have a lead on one. He gave me some names. What do you think?”
“It sounds like a good plan,” she purred at me, and her sultry smile had returned.
“Do you think I should return to the underdark and go after the one that overseer told me that he—”
“Leo, I don’t want to give you advice about your quest.” She held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong. I really want to tell you what to do, but when we release, I want to be able to say that you got the artifacts, give the press the timeline you did it in, and be able to honestly tell them that I didn’t guide you in any direction that helped you win.”
“I get that. Gamers can be kinda particular about the truth.”
“They are already going to think that I helped you a bunch.” She shrugged. “I just don’t want to lie about it. I do want to hear your progress though, and I want to continue with our daily meetings where you tell me what improvements we can make to any game element.”
“Is that the only reason you want to meet daily?” I smiled at her.
“No. Of course not.” She retu
rned my smile, and I felt myself begin to fall into her eyes again.
“Ms. Zerne?” a voice asked across the intercom in the office. The sound broke the focus Zarra and I had on each other and we both jumped a little in our seats.
“Yes?” the beautiful woman’s voice sounded more than a little annoyed.
“Sorry for the interruption. I tried your cell phone, but you didn’t answer.”
“That’s fine, May. What is it?”
“I have someone claiming to be the director of the Albany FBI branch. They want to speak to you about what happened an hour ago in Vermont.”
“Okay. I’ll take it in here. Give me a second. Then I’ll tell you to transfer him.”
Zarra looked at me with a bemused expression. “I’ll talk to this yahoo. You go have lunch with your parents. Maybe I can have dinner with them tonight?”
“Maybe. I’d like that, but I also want to get back in game. Maybe tomorrow night?”
“Either way. I’m here all the time. Just let me know.”
“Okay. Until then. Bye, Zarra. Thanks for hiring Chip. He’ll be a great—”
“I hope he’ll accept my offer. He might not.” She laughed. “Okay, let me get this. I think FBI men don’t like to be on hold for a long time. Bye, Leo.”
I walked out of the conference room as Zarra told the woman on the phone to transfer the call. Part of me wanted to listen to Zarra speak with the man, but dealing with the police wasn’t really my priority.
I needed to take care of my parents.
Well, I needed to find these damn relics and help Zarra tweak our game so that I’d feel like I was paying for the care of my parents.
I headed down the hallway and pulled my phone out of my jeans. I wasn’t supposed to have the device in the complex, but no one had mentioned it during the confusion of my return. My hands weren’t shaking anymore, and it was easy to press Dinah’s number.
“Hey hon. How goes the new gig? Did you get your parents?” the woman asked as soon as she answered the phone.
I realized that there was no way she would have know about the recent attempt on my life. I guessed that even the media didn’t even know about it yet. They probably would soon, so I needed to get the word out to my friends, and give my lawyer the green light to release my retirement statement.
Lion's Quest: Dual Wield: A LitRPG Saga Page 2
