“Well now, this was unexpected,” she said as Alex and a second person from his team, Jordan, appeared in full form. The three stared at each other for a moment in silence before Jordan stepped forward, his chocolate skin sheathed in sweat.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” the young teen began as he rubbed his scalp, running his hand over the tightly braided cornrows. Tori, though, was focusing solely on Alex, who simply stared at her.
“How’s this going to end?” she asked him softly. Alex shook his head.
“Badly for you,” he promised her.
She snorted, amused. “I don’t think so,” she said as Alex drew his sword. She followed suit, and for good measure opened her instant messenger box as well. She quickly set it up to relay the entire conversation elsewhere. The last thing she truly wanted was a fight.
“Guys, do we have to do this?” Jordan asked nervously. The young Moderator stared at the two much more powerful gamers as they squared off, clearly wanting no part of the fight. “Look, I’m sorry. I just thought a few extra points would be okay. Gloom said–”
“Shut up,” Alex snarled and looked back at her. “Two on one, Tori. And honestly, I’d rather just have you stay quiet about this. You want a piece of the action? I’ve gotten two so far. I can split with you what we catch next, no problems.”
She shook her head. “This is why you Moderators get bad names, Alex. Mods like you, pulling selfish crap to suit your own end while we’re on a hunt. It’s tiring.”
“So that’s a no,” Alex nodded, his brief flash of anger gone. He stared at her coldly. “Well, the problem we have here is if I eliminate you, you’re out and can simply pull the plug on me, and then I’m out. But if you eliminate Jordan and myself, you’re short two more Moderators. Impasse.”
“Not necessarily,” she said easily. “You’ve already scouted this city, haven’t you, Jordan?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jordan stammered, confused. Alex shot the younger teen a dirty look. Jordan continued. “I checked from end to end, and nothing. Just an endless cycle of everyday lives.”
Endless cycles. The phrase stuck in her mind. She mulled it over for a moment before her eyes widened. Leo had said it’d felt as if the Nexus had been on its own power source, looped back into itself, and nobody knew why or how it was going on. It dawned on her where she’d heard that before in context to the rest of the worlds of The Warp.
“Then it’s not here, is it,” she stated, her earlier suspicions confirmed as all the pieces suddenly fell into place. She knew the likelihood of the glitch being in this world was nil, given the large size and how quickly Alex had managed to set up the Gêmeo portal. She glanced back at Alex. “So really, I have no use for you after this. You can go about your merry way, truth be told. Except... you pulled this stunt. I’m not pleased.”
“So what?” Alex asked, his tone dark. “Again, we’re stuck. You eliminate me, I pull the plug on you. I eliminate you, you pull the plug on me. Nobody catches Gargoyle, and nobody finds the glitch. Then what?”
Tori stared silently at the man, knowing Alex had his facts in order. His conclusion, however, was in error.
“Not... necessarily,” she said. “Mr. Champion?”
I’m here, Leo wrote back immediately through the instant messenger. Tori scowled briefly and wondered why the most technologically influential man since Bill Gates was using text only messenger. I’ve contacted Disney security and they’re in position to take our good friend into custody.
She looked back at Alex and grinned. Alex stared at her, comprehension dawning on his handsome, cold face.
“I hate fighting with swords,” she informed Alex casually as she sheathed her blade contemptuously. “Mr. Champion, tell them to unplug Alex Swavely, if you will.”
Alex started forward, his face twisted into a fierce scowl. Tori watched as the man suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth open in a silent cry, as his body depixelated bit by bit. Tori dispassionately watched him disappear, his body turning into nothing more than pixelated graphics for a brief moment before he was completely gone.
“Thank you, sir,” she said into the instant messenger and closed it. She leveled her gaze on Jordan. “You.”
“Yes?” Jordan asked nervously. She thought for a moment, wondering how harsh she should make the punishment before she decided.
“I want you to log off,” she told him. “Log off and fly home. I’m placing you on a month-long ban from The Warp. You’ll retain your Moderator status for now, pending review. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jordan nodded, relieved.
“If you pull something like this again, your ban is permanent, and you will be fired,” Tori promised him. “This is also going into your record as a strike against you.”
Jordan nodded and immediately began to log out, his own body depixelating slower than Alex’s. She watched calmly as the final shred of Jordan’s being was officially out of The Warp. She turned and quickly walked out of the alley.
Shane stared at her, shocked, as she reappeared. Tori looked at him and started shaking.
“Holy crap,” he said. “You have a pair of brass ones.”
“Oh my God,” she said, trembling, her nerves shot. “I thought they were going to seriously kick my butt.”
“It’s not here?” he asked. He hadn’t heard much of the conversation from the alley, but the bit about the glitch he had.
She shook her head. “Jordan has his dumb moments, but I believe him,” she replied. “I’m tired of wandering around on this. Log off, and tonight we’re doing dinner at the Don Shula restaurant at the Dolphin. I’m sending everyone home except for the Ganymede and Hel teams. I’m tired of playing games and running like this. I’m tired of the drama. I want them all gone. Only us five, and those from Hel, from here on out.”
“Why?” Shane asked, surprised. “Why Hel?”
“I think I know where the glitch is.”
* * * * *
Chapter 14
“Girl, you look like crap,” Shane said as he pulled a chair up next to Tori at the Shula Steakhouse. The restaurant, named after the legendary former coach, was nestled comfortably within the Dolphin Resort. The five-star restaurant was a favorite with both visiting celebrities and guests alike, though the staff managed to keep the crowds to a minimum by skillfully handling the line. Reservations were a definite plus, and Tori was fortunate to have placed hers the moment they’d gone offline.
The other Moderators had accepted her final decision regarding their hunt for the glitch within The Warp stoically, with the exception of the team who had followed Gloom. Alex himself had threatened and pleaded to her for a second chance after she’d logged off from The Warp. She hadn’t been forgiving and sent him on his way.
“C’mon, she’s had a rough day,” Dylan said as he sat on Tori’s right. “Cut her some slack.”
“Okay, sorry,” Shane apologized. “You must feel like crap then.”
She ignored him. Everyone else had already left, with the exception of the original Ganymede team and the Hel team, sans Royce. Her old teammate had one more day of his ban in place before he could rejoin them in The Warp. Stacey, Tyler and Michael had been pleasantly surprised when she told them what she’d figured out. They’d been even more surprised when she’d told them the Hel team was going to stay and assist them. The Sparta team Tori had asked to leave, and they had, albeit grudgingly. They were somewhat mollified when she informed them they’d still be paid, should one of the two remaining teams accomplish the mission.
Outside of the normal competition between the Moderators, which occurred naturally, there wasn’t a shred of lingering animosity between any of them. Exceptions were there, as in the case with Alex and Shane, two very strong-willed individuals who butted heads on frequent occasions. She knew the Hel team, and while it wasn’t the strongest team she’d assembled—indeed, Samantha’s team was possibly the weakest of the four—they worked the best as a team. They were also the most experienced at
hunting in a group.
Tori sighed and looked longingly down at Stacey’s wine glass. She wasn’t a drinker in any sense of the word, but the somber mood she was in simply called for wine. If she’d been old enough she’d have been in luck, since the Shula had a world-class wine bar. Alas, she was stone-cold sober.
No kid, you can’t drink because you’re not old enough to handle responsibility, she mentally griped. But hey, go $100,000 in debt earning a college education you might be able to pay off by the time your kids start school. That’s totally reasonable and responsible.
“Drinking is bad for you,” Shane chided as he accepted a glass of water from a hovering waitress. He must have recognized the look on her face. Instead of getting some wine, she sipped the chilled water and set it down on the large table, which was designed to hold at least fifteen guests. She looked around at the empty table. Only Stacey and Dylan had arrived so far, although it was still early. They’d planned on an eight o’clock dinner, and it was still a half-hour before.
“I’d probably turn into a drunk at the drop of a hat,” she agreed morosely. She took another sip of water and wished she’d ordered some soda instead. Water was boring.
“Well, since it’s on the company’s dime, and I’m old enough” Shane said with a shrug as the waitress magically appeared at his elbow. He looked up at the pretty Asian woman and smiled. “Can I have a glass of Renault Valley ‘05, please? The darker the better?”
“You’re twenty-one?” she asked, surprised. “I thought you were eighteen!”
“Really?” Shane asked, surprised himself.
“You could’ve bought me booze!”
“And have an angry boyfriend beat me to death? No thanks,” he shook his head. “Plus, you’re personal friends with the richest man in the world. He can have me killed and make it look like some sort of accident and nobody would care. On top of that, isn’t your father on the level of the Secret Service when it comes to being over-protective?”
“He wouldn’t…” her voice trailed off before she snickered. “Okay, he probably wouldn’t. Maybe. No…you’d be a walking dead man.”
“I rest my case.” Shane threw his hands into the air. “No booze for you. Ever.”
The rest of the group arrived, and dinner orders were taken. The food was delicious, as expected, and eventually everyone finished. She even managed to eat all her dessert, a first. Being inside The Warp for long periods of time gave her an appetite, though she knew she’d pay for it when she went back to working out when she got back to school. For the time being, however, she decided to enjoy the chocolate sundae cheesecake and ignore the guilt that came with it.
“So now everyone is fat and fed, let’s talk about why I sent everyone else home,” Tori said as she leaned back in her seat and resisted the urge to unbutton her jeans. She hadn’t really needed to eat the entire cow, but she’d never had steak that good before. “I realized something while we were in Kadashter, and it dawned on me we were doing everything bass ackwards.”
“Huh?” Stacey blinked and looked around. “I must have missed something while you were in Kadashter.”
“You went back into Ganymede after I got out, right?” Tori asked.
“Of course,” Stacey said with a shrug of her shoulders. “We needed to check out the space around the moon.”
“You didn’t find anything, did you?”
“No,” Stacey admitted.
“In Kadashter, when I realized Alex was using his Gêmeo code, I thought about what Mr. Champion told me,” Tori said. She took a small sip of water. “He mentioned the Nexus has been self-powering itself, which is impossible if you look at it from his point of view. But we’re gamers and Moderators, so we know how to hack just about anything.
“The Chaos code will allow anything in The Warp so long as the main coding of the system isn’t disturbed. Imagine a code that makes the system better, and creates a more efficiently run program. The Chaos code will allow it. No, I think it’ll encourage it. So an uploaded code through some node to create a feedback loop and allow a gamer to use the lag to cheat? Bad, and Chaos will nuke the crap out of it. But a code that creates a link to another world to allow the Nexus to run better and more efficiently without directly affecting the game itself? Good, so Chaos leaves it alone.
“Now think about the mythology of every world. Ganymede is just a straight shooter world with furballs and a pretty view. It’s the most basic of realms in the tournament. Sparta isn’t much better, since it’s just some gladiatorial games, right? Kadashter has some more mythos, but still nothing major. Then there’s Hel…
“Hel is based completely on the Norse mythologies. This means Odin, Thor, Loki, Freya, and all those guys. They really went all out when they created it. It’s also the most difficult realm because the coding is fickle in it. It all depends on where in the timeline of Hel the realm is in. Don’t forget, Hel resets on a regular cycle because... Anyone know why?”
“You sound like my old high school English teacher,” Samantha complained.
“Sorry,” Tori said.
“Wait…Hel resets because, ah, what’s it called? When the world ends?” Dylan scratched his neck and tried to remember. “Loki causes it. Doesn’t he? Dang it, I saw this movie…”
“Ragnarok,” Tori confirmed and gave her boyfriend a quick peck on the cheek before she continued. “You were close. Now, in Norse mythology there’s a creature who devours the whole world and causes it to reset. It’s a giant serpent that circles Midgard. Imagine if a giant snake keeps giving the power of Hel to another realm to make it operate more efficiently?”
“How though?” Shane asked. “Realms are isolated from one another.”
“How do our codes transfer from one realm to the other?” Tori asked.
“Oh, son of a…” Shane exhaled. “Someone is causing this.”
“Who’d we run into in Ganymede?” She pressed further.
“Gargoyle? Oh my God,” Stacey hissed and slapped the table with an open palm. “How did I miss this?”
“I missed it too at first,” Tori stated. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What’s his end game though?” Dylan asked, worried. “How’re we going to take him out?”
“Hey, we beat him once, we can do it again,” Tori reminded him. “Remember? You used his head as a bench.”
“No, that was the other one. Moonbat? Either way, not something I wanted to remember after eating filet mignon,” Dylan turned a little green at the memory. The others laughed at his expense, though it all felt a little forced to Tori. Everyone at the table knew what would potentially happen if Gargoyle was able to have free reign within The Warp again. There was only one other person she dreaded running into more.
“Is he trying to take over The Warp again?” Samantha asked, confused. “This is, like, the worst way to do it.”
“I don’t think he was trying to take over The Warp last time,” Tori replied as she shoved dark memories away. “He wasn’t with anybody else who was behind it. Remember, they found three of them in The WarpSoft server banks in Germany, and the one who died was nearby running proxy servers. They never could locate Gargoyle, and they never found any sign of his IP. Even the terrorists didn’t know who he really was. It was like he didn’t really exist. We know he did, because we fought him. I think he’s doing something else.”
“Like what, bitcoin mining?” Stacey pursed her lips in thought. “No, that’d be stupid. And a waste of time.”
“I don’t know what he’s up to, but I think I know how to stop him,” Tori said firmly.
“What about Gargoyle?” Shane asked suddenly, interrupting the excited mood of the group.
“I’m willing to bet we’ll find him in there as well,” Tori replied. She looked at her friend, confused. “Weren’t you listening?”
“Yeah, no, sorta.” Shane looked at her sheepishly. “Sorry. Why would he be in there though and not outside where it’s safe?”
“Because someone
has to play the role of Hel itself,” Tori answered. “Who better than the self-described avatar of Chaos? As far as I can tell, he’s the only one of the Rogues who had no real reason. Plus…Parish told me something Gargoyle said to him when he first trapped him in the tavern.”
“Oh?” Dylan asked, surprised. “You never mentioned that.”
“I didn’t think it was important at the time,” Tori admitted. “I thought he was just like the others.”
“So what did he say?” Tyler asked.
“He said it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Tori abbreviated. “Something about how he didn’t really want to do what he was doing to Parish but needed to.”
“That’s a reach,” Stacey said before she made a face. “I think he just told him that in case everything the Rogues were doing went to crap. It makes sense if you think about it. In a sick and twisted sort of way.”
“I just wish we knew what his end game was,” Dylan added morosely. “Chasing ghosts within the machine isn’t what I call a good time, no matter how much I’m getting paid. I don’t think it’s going to end well for us if we find them.”
Neither do I, Tori thought.
* * * * *
Chapter 15
Tori looked at the war-torn landscape of Hel with a grimace. She knew the goal of the tournament gamers in Hel was to pillage and loot, earning points for the best raiding while they warred with one another throughout the cold, bitter landscape. The theory behind pillaging and looting was one thing. In actuality, it was a horrific scene that caused more than one member of her team to become ill.
She shivered as she spotted what could only be described as a charred lump of coal, roughly human sized, blocking a small portion of the game trail they were on. The forest around her was packed solidly with snow-covered trees. The fir trees and the tall, looming pines which thrived in the cold Arctic-like world pressed in around her. Above her the sky remained a dull gray, which seemed to be the default setting for Hel. She sighed. She really didn’t want to remain in this world, but they had to find the glitch and, more importantly, track down Gargoyle.
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