“Congrats!” said Gerald, his smile widening. “I gotta say, you guys cleared that mission way faster than we ever expected.”
Vinod’s eyebrows flattened. His evident annoyance with Gerald didn’t dent his false smile. “Yes, congratulations are indeed in order. I’m most curious how you found the Reckoning without meeting my alter ego in the game.”
“Well,” said Kavan, “We got the codes to let our ship’s sensors pick up the warp trace it left behind, so we figured we’d have to run all over the star map to try and find a pattern to it. And, since we’re running all over the place, might as well grab a mission. I picked one up to evacuate some settlers from a geologically unstable moon, and on the way there, we just tripped across the Reckoning.”
Gerald’s eyebrows inched up. “Wow. Luck. Guess it was a bad idea to build an instance for this quest inside a world boss that could be randomly tripped over.” He nudged Vinod’s chair. “Told you we should’ve put it on a planet somewhere behind a door that only appears to players on the right stage of the mission.”
“Interesting.” Vinod stared at Fawkes past steepled fingers. “Very interesting how you just happened to stumble across it like that. Almost as if you could read our minds.”
Fawkes narrowed her eyes at him. “We’re not the ones reading minds.”
The predatory nature of Vinod’s smile deepened. “I thought so.”
Oops. Bastard baited me.
Kavan’s smile went forced. Rallek put a hand on her leg.
“Okay, let’s dispense with the bullshit then.” Fawkes sat up straight. “Yeah, we found a back door into your network, but someone left the keys on the porch. It looked like a mission.”
“It’s still breaking and entering even if the homeowner left their key outside,” said Vinod.
“Oh.” Fawkes rolled her head around sarcastically. “If you’re going to start splitting legal hairs, how about we discuss kidnapping, torture, and attempted murder?”
Nakamura glanced at Prakash, with one eyebrow up.
“Your associates weren’t exactly subtle when they had me tied to a chair with a hammer ready to smash my toes flat until I told them what I did with CSI’s information.”
“And they tried to kill me,” said Angel813. “Drove up to my apartment and started shooting.”
Vinod narrowed his eyes. “You gained access to game data files, and then mysteriously located the Reckoning shortly afterward.”
Rallek looked up from a holographic display panel. “Oh, if you guys are going to screw us out of the prize money, you might want to update your game before too many people notice the leaderboard page announcing that we won it.”
Vinod’s glare came close to glass-melting hot.
“What?” Gerald looked at him. “You think these guys cheated?”
Vinod tore his glare off Fawkes and peered up at Gerald. “How else do you explain them finding it so fast? Joe Nguyen assured me no one would be able to complete this mission for at least a year.”
“Dumb luck would technically explain it,” said Kavan. “The Reckoning warps around in a pattern, teleporting from sector to sector. At any given moment, it exists somewhere. I mean the odds are, pardon the pun, astronomical, but it is possible.”
Fawkes shifted her gaze to him. It’s not a pattern. It’s random. She opened her mouth to correct him, but bit her tongue. Duh. Calm down, Kota. You’re too pissed off to think. We’re not supposed to know it’s random.
Gerald chuckled, smiling so hard his eyes seemed to vanish. “The breadcrumbing from following the warp drive traces is supposed to lead to the wreckage of another corvette that tried to take it on, and it’s got data logs of communication with the ‘Doctor Prakash’ character. He’s developed a device that would allow a ship to predict where the Reckoning would be, and also a module that makes it impossible for the Reckoning’s sensors to detect players’ ship or the pulse laser batteries to target it.”
“So you don’t force a raid fight.” Nighthawk grinned. “If we had that component, we could’ve flown right in and landed by that door.”
“I’m still waiting to hear how you managed to do that without being vaporized.” Vinod again glared at Fawkes.
Nighthawk tugged at the nonexistent lapels of his armor. “I’m just that good.”
“Bullshit,” said Vinod.
“Hey.” Kavan raised a hand. “Easy. I know he doesn’t look like it, but he’s only eleven.”
“Daaaaaad.” Nighthawk sighed.
Gerald chuckled.
“Look.” Nighthawk leaned forward. “I’m sure the game recorded that whole thing. Watch the replay. It’s all legit. We didn’t cheat.”
“I was.” Gerald grinned. “As soon as combat began between the Reckoning and a ship on the leaderboard, we all got a notification. I pulled up the spectator view expecting some hothead to be doing it wrong, but I went through two bowls of popcorn watching that epicness. What I’m curious about though, since you didn’t have the quest update from the Dr. Prakash character, and you didn’t use any information you found inside the network, how did you know to go inside the ship?”
Fawkes traced a box in midair. “You have heard of sensors right? I figured there was no way a single ship would be expected to take the Reckoning out, so I scanned it and spotted a purple component. Never saw purple before, so I zoomed in. Looked like a door. We were stuck in combat already, so… we decided to take a chance.”
“Glomulus, really?” asked Angel813. “Everyone hates that piece of shit.”
Kavan glanced at her. “Come on, guys…”
“Dad. Bad words aren’t going to hurt me.” Nighthawk overacted a sigh.
Gerald laughed. “Oh, yeah, we know. Used him because we hoped it would be a hint to run and not try to fight. You completely missed the reactor core the boss was supposed to fall into.” He opened a display window already showing a map of the Reckoning’s interior, and pointed out a huge room with a big pit in the middle, spanned by a narrow metal walkway. “He’d have chased you across this catwalk, but halfway across, would’ve crushed it and fallen to his death.”
“Oh. Guess we went the wrong way.” Fawkes shrugged.
“So you expect me to believe this is legitimate?” asked Vinod.
Gerald smiled. “Well, they clearly didn’t know about the reactor room.”
“Hold on there a sec dude.” Fawkes raised a hand. “There’s still the issue of CSI conducting an experiment on mental manipulation that resulted in that piece of shit Steyr winning an election he shouldn’t have. Not to mention your plan to data mine brains and sell peoples wants and desires to the highest bidder.”
Gerald blinked at her. “What?”
“You don’t know?” asked Rallek.
Vinod fidgeted.
“Yeah, maybe this is one guy’s pet project.” Fawkes stood and leaned toward the desk. “I admit I followed Tom Urban’s clues and found a backdoor into your real-world network through the game world… and I saw the files about the election and the data mining. The Neurona 4 helmets basically let your system index people’s memories like a database. You can run a search on just about anything and extract snippets of memory, or even implant subliminal suggestions. That’s why you tried to have us killed.”
Gerald shook his head, chuckling. “Oh, come on… that stuff is part of a storyline we haven’t implemented yet. The idea is to mix the game with a conspiracy angle in real life.”
“Nice try.” Fawkes held up her arm, but armor got in the way of showing off handcuff marks. Also, her character hadn’t inherited them from Dakota. Duh. “If all that stuff is fictional, why did I get tasered and kidnapped? That was not fun.”
Vinod flexed his steepled fingers back and forth for a moment in quiet. “You need to realize that Governor Steyr has some influential friends. Certain unfortunate events which may or may not have happened to you outside the game were beyond CSI’s control or influence.”
Gerald stared at Vinod in shock. “Seriously? That stuff
is real?”
“It felt damn real to me. This one alley I guess was supposed to be foreboding or something looked an awful lot like a place where I had a real bad experience as a teen.”
“Yeah, well…” Gerald grasped at the air as if trying to pluck words with his hands. “We know the game can prod the subconscious to invoke strong emotional memories. It’s quite likely that the rendering engine picked up on nuances of that environment and incorporated them into the scenery to enhance the mood of the gameplay. It’s all automatic in the engine. No one’s actively viewing that or anything. Like, if someone’s afraid of the color green, in a scene meant to be scary, it’ll use a lot of green.”
She clenched her hands into fists atop her knees. “Making me think about a guy assaulting me when I was sixteen is a little over the line.”
“So is that why you broke into our network?” asked Vinod. “Some sort of revenge play for triggering you?”
She scowled.
“What is it you want?” asked Nakamura.
“Not to have to look over my goddamned shoulder for a black car,” said Fawkes. “I wanna go home and not wonder if I’m going to wake up tied to a chair again.”
“I just wanna play the game,” said Nighthawk. “And going home would be cool.”
“They’re probably honing in on us now,” said Kavan. “Fair bet they’ve disabled our logout so we’re stuck here until their goons find us in the real world.”
“Goons?” asked Gerald with a hint of a chuckle. “Who uses that word?”
“It wouldn’t look good for CSI to back out of the prize after announcing we won it,” said Angel813.
Vinod slid his index fingers up either side of his nose, rubbing, eyes closed. “How much damage is there? Who else knows about the information you found during the data breach?”
Her younger self, eager to exploit a chance to castrate an evil corporation got into a fight with the lazy, older Dakota who just wanted to go home and get back to her normal―if inglorious―existence. Pour coffee, play Axillon99, and maybe see where life with Eric would go. Mental gears ground together. If it affected only her, she’d have let out the defiant side.
Fawkes leaned forward and looked over at Nighthawk, seeing not the twentysomething, athletic pilot, but the terrified scrawny boy who lay unconscious not far from where her body ignored the real world. He didn’t deserve to be caught up in a pissing contest with a company that had the clout to send killers after them.
“I’ve got a few remote clients set up to send out emails with all the data about Steyr’s election and your plans to steal information from people’s heads. So far, I haven’t sent it anywhere as you’re obviously aware of because there hasn’t been a shitstorm. But I should probably hit the proverbial button soon to stop the script from automatically doing so. You know, a dead-woman switch.”
Vinod’s gaze felt like an x-ray beam.
“The gamer in us wanted to try and finish the prize mission first.” Fawkes smiled, as innocent as she could pull off. “I figured if this leaked to the media, especially that CSI meddled with an election, Axillon99 would get shut down when the company imploded.”
“Holy shit.” Gerald ran his hands up over his wild mane. “You’re really serious? We’re doing this? We did that?”
Nighthawk’s posture resembled that of an eleven-year-old about to be grounded. He frowned at the rug. “Don’t shut down the game.”
“Seems we’ve arrived at an impasse,” said Vinod.
“Not completely. I have a suggestion.” Fawkes pointed a finger gun at him. “I’ll agree not to go public with any of the information we found in exchange for CSI giving all five of us the full ten million dollar prize for the contest instead of dividing it. We all stay quiet, you call off your dogs, and leave us alone.”
“Whoa.” Rallek looked at her. “You’re gonna sell out?”
Angel813 bit her lip.
Kavan didn’t look pleased, but also didn’t voice an objection.
“Look. Nighthawk’s only a kid. Yeah, maybe I’m offering to sell out, but I can’t put his life at risk. Politicians and corporations are going to be scumbags no matter what I do. Sure, if we leak the info, CSI might go down in flames… and take our favorite game with it. I’m willing to stay quiet for the money, and so we’re still able to play.”
Vinod leaned back in his chair, again steepling his fingers in front of his face.
“I think they should stop reading minds, and making people do stuff.” Nighthawk shook his head. “That’s crappy. If people found out about that, no one would want to use a gaming helmet ever again―for any game, not just Ax. You guys make buttloads of money on subscriptions already. Bad guys always screw each other over. If someone pays you to read memories and gets mad enough, they go public and everything goes down.”
“Kid’s got a point,” said Fawkes. “Everyone you do shade with becomes a potential blackmailer.”
“Oh, no…” Gerald shook his head. “I’m not gonna be a party to this level of bullshit. This isn’t what we built, Vinod. We’re an entertainment company. We forge dreams, entire universes. Our legacy shouldn’t go out like that.”
Vinod sighed through his nose. “How can I be sure you will keep your word?”
“About as sure as I can be you won’t send guys to kidnap me again.” She smirked.
“Excuse us for a moment.” Vinod looked up at Nakamura standing beside his chair.
Both men disappeared into thin air.
“Wow.” Gerald paced around. “I’m really sorry about all this. I had no idea any of that nefarious crap was going on.”
“Nefarious?” asked Kavan. “Who uses that word?”
Gerald laughed. “Touché.”
“I still can’t believe you’re willing to sell out.” Rallek’s eyebrows tilted up in the middle. “It’s like against everything you believe in.”
“Not much choice here. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop resisting corporations that crap on the normal people. I just don’t want a little kid’s blood on my hands.”
“I’m not a little kid. I’m eleven,” muttered Nighthawk.
“This is a giant corporation with political connections. I’m a nobody barista. He’s an eleven-year-old boy. I just want my life back. I want you guys to stop getting shot at.”
“Getting shot at happens anyway. You saw where I live,” said Angel813 with a faint grin.
“That can always change.” Kavan glanced at her.
Nighthawk glanced between Angel813 and his father for a second, then grinned.
“It feels wrong to let them get away with it, especially that creep Steyr, but I see where you’re coming from and I appreciate you thinking of Shawn.” Kavan pulled off his armor helmet and scratched his sweat-dampened hair. “And the ten million is pretty tempting.”
“More like six and change after taxes,” said Rallek.
“Still.” Kavan chuckled. “Nice little rainy day fund.”
Vinod and Nakamura reappeared.
“I will agree to your terms on the condition that you sign non-disclosure agreements and a confession to illegally breaching our network. The confession will remain sealed as long as your lips do.”
“No problem with the NDA, but if you want me to sign a confession, I want a video statement from you admitting that CSI hired mercenaries to kidnap and torture me and also conduct a drive-by shooting on Angel.”
Vinod fidgeted, glancing at Nakamura who shook his head to the negative.
“Then you skip the confession and hang it all on the NDA. I’m guessing if we go public, we would have to pay back the prize money.”
“That is correct,” said Nakamura.
“Well, if we go public, there’s a good chance our favorite game will die… so, we won’t do that.” She smiled.
“You’re really that worried about losing access to Axillon99?” asked Gerald, eyebrows up.
Fawkes cackled. “Have you ever played it? To be transported bodily into a vast un
iverse like that? It’s amazing… I’m still pouring goddamned coffee for a living because I throw all my time at the game instead of hunting for a real job.” She sighed. “What can I say… I’m an addict.”
“I must say that I am surprised.” Vinod gave her the ‘up-and-down’ look. “I’d expected a bit more rebellious idealism from you.”
She rolled her eyes. “My idea of rebellious idealism is charging an asshole customer for an extra shot of espresso and not putting it in his coffee.”
“How say the rest of you?” asked Vinod.
“I’m only eleven, so I can’t sign anything. Up to my dad.” Nighthawk smiled.
“Ten million ostensibly as winning the prize for The Lost Dreadnought, no one shoots at us, and we keep quiet? I can live with that.” Kavan nodded.
“I want to get home to my cats,” said Angel813. “I’m good with it.”
Gerald kept staring at Vinod like the man had shot his dog.
“Very well. Mr. Nakamura will draw up the appropriate paperwork. You will, of course, all need to be present in person to sign the documents, the child notwithstanding. Our legal team will contact you via email in the real world and make arrangements to fly you to San Fran.” Vinod’s hostility melted off to the warm, if insincere, façade he’d likely have shown winners who hadn’t discovered the brain wonkery. “In accordance with the contest terms, there’s also some media appearances, and you agree that CSI can use your likenesses, your characters of course, in promotional materials. Insofar as the minor is concerned, we would include him only with his father’s consent. Though…” He grinned. “A prodigy pilot like that could probably land some endorsement deals. Especially if he’s photogenic.”
“Great.” Fawkes grinned. The more famous we get, the safer I feel.
“Very well then. If there’s nothing else, we’ll send you back to the game.” Vinod smiled.
Gerald pulled open a terminal window. “Oh, may as well give you a little bonus.” He poked a few buttons on the holographic panel, causing faint chirps. “There we are. As a token for how awesome that was, I’ve waived the lockout on your ship. It’s waiting for you already.”
“Awesome!” yelled Nighthawk. “Mission time!”
Axillon99 Page 41
