Reaper

by Janet Edwards

  “Moment.” Hawk turned his head to look sideways, clearly distracted by something in Game. There was an agonizing wait of three or four minutes before he spoke again. “I’ve just had a message from the Avalon Survivors Group. They understand me spending time on the hunt for the bomber, they want whoever was responsible caught as fast as possible, but they’d also like me to visit the bomb site on their behalf.”

  His face twisted in pain. “They shouldn’t have had to send me that message. I let myself get too caught up in the interviews and the investigation. I should have realized that my job as player representative isn’t just about catching the bomber, but about helping fifty billion distressed players, especially the Avalon survivors, cope with what’s happened.”

  He paused. “I have to go to the bomb site as my first priority now. Thank you for giving me a glimpse of your lives.”

  Nathan and I exchanged despairing looks. The moment for asking Hawk for help had gone. I saw Nathan turn to face one of his sketches on the wall. I couldn’t be sure what it was without moving closer, but judging from Nathan’s mournful expression it was probably his planned future self as a werewolf.

  “Simple things, like mentioning that a good parent calls their child once a week from Game, have shown me that I know even less about this world than I thought,” added Hawk. “Since I can’t stay here to learn more from you, I’d like you both to come along and assist me. Would you be willing to do that?”

  Nathan and I stared at him in a mixture of disbelief and hope, and eagerly spoke in chorus. “Yah.”

  “My job means I’ll have access to confidential details about both the Unilaw and Game investigations. The Game news channels have all been warned that they mustn’t broadcast anything other than official announcements, because the bomber would get that information too, but I don’t entirely trust them. I hope both of you understand that everything you see and hear while you’re assisting me has to be kept strictly secret.”

  “Yah,” we chorused for the second time.

  “That’s settled then,” said Hawk. “Let’s get moving.”

  He strode off out of the door, and Nathan and I scurried after him. When we arrived back at the transport stop, our original pod had vanished off to carry other passengers, so Hawk called up a new four-person pod, and we climbed in and sat facing him.

  The pod started moving. There were no resurrections in the real world like there were in Game. Nothing could bring my father back to me, but I was part of the hunt for the bomber who’d killed him. If that hunt was successful, then Hawk would surely agree to help me and Nathan with comments on our records, and a word of praise from Hawk the Unvanquished would convince the Admission Committee of any world in Game to accept us.

  There was still a chance that Jex of the silver, feathered hair would live under the glorious sky of Ganymede.

  Chapter Five

  It couldn’t have been more than a two minute ride before the pod stopped. I looked at the opening door in surprise. Hawk had mentioned at the end of my interrogation that the bomb site was hundreds of miles away, so I’d expected us to be making a long journey.

  Hawk bounced to his feet and lightly stepped out of the pod. His movements were becoming less and less generic and mechanical, and more those of a distinct person. I’d never seen that happen before with a droid. Part of the difference might be because this was an unusual droid, but I was sure most of it was because the incredible Hawk was controlling it.

  Nathan and I followed Hawk out onto the platform. I saw we were at an interchange with a major express line, and a sleek, long-distance carriage was waiting for us. Hawk wasn’t a kid hoarding as many credits as possible to pay their subscription when they entered Game. He probably had an unlimited budget for his work, so it made sense that we’d transfer from a standard pod to one of the much higher speed long-distance carriages for this journey.

  I expected Hawk to lead us into the carriage, but instead he stood utterly motionless with even his facial expression frozen in place. I guessed he’d disabled the droid controls while he did something else in Game. Nathan and I exchanged puzzled glances, and waited silently.

  After a few minutes, a delivery trolley whizzed up to me, braked sharply to a halt, and bleeped plaintively. I realized I was standing on the red square that marked the delivery trolleys’ navigation and recharge hub for this interchange, and guiltily stepped aside.

  The trolley trundled forward onto the square, stopped, and its green control lights flashed busily for a few seconds as it checked its location and recharged power. The blue light came on to show it was processing further instructions, and it abruptly turned, rolled across to the long-distance carriage, extended its crane-like arm, and loaded three crates in through the door.

  We’d obviously been waiting for these crates to be delivered. Did that mean we’d be leaving now? I looked hopefully at Hawk, and saw he’d come back to life again and was watching the delivery trolley roll off to its next job. Judging from the bemused look on his face, delivery trolleys had either been very different back when he entered Game or hadn’t existed at all.

  Hawk gave an odd shake of his head, turned, and went aboard the carriage. Nathan and I hastily followed, and I saw Nathan purse his lips in a soundless whistle of appreciation. This was a large, luxury carriage. It could comfortably hold twenty people, but we seemed to have it all to ourselves.

  We sat down on plush padded seats, with arms that reached round and embraced us as the carriage started to accelerate. I’d never been in a long-distance carriage before, and I didn’t like the sensation of being imprisoned. Fortunately, it was only a few minutes before the grasping arms released us. There was a musical chime, and a recorded voice came from overhead speakers.

  “We have reached maximum velocity. You are now free to move as you wish. Please return to your seats when the deceleration warning sounds.”

  “I’m afraid we’ve got to make a very long journey,” said Hawk. “I wanted to use this particular controlled droid during my investigation, because it’s an experimental model with a lot of anti-surveillance features. You’ll think I’m paranoid about reporters, but I’ve had a lot of problems with them spying on me in the past, and I don’t want them messing up this investigation.”

  He stood up and went across to open a crate. “The only problem with using this droid was that it was stored in a United Law facility in what used to be called England in my day, while the bomb site was over five hundred miles away.”

  “This is still called England,” I said diffidently.

  Hawk laughed. “It’s nice to know something hasn’t changed. Anyway, we’ll be going through a sub-ocean tunnel and deep into the heart of Europe.”

  He tossed a sealed plastic bag to me, and another to Nathan. “It’ll save a lot of pointless explanations if you two are wearing more official looking clothes while you’re helping me. There’s a shower at the end of the carriage if you want to freshen up. Catch a couple of hours sleep if you want as well. I don’t need sleep myself, so try to grab what opportunities you get, and remind me if I forget you have to rest sometimes.”

  I gestured to Nathan to use the shower first, since my nose was telling me he urgently needed it. He headed off, clutching his plastic bag.

  While he was off in the shower, I opened my own plastic bag and inspected the contents. Dark blue, tailored top and trousers, with shoes to match. They reminded me of the uniforms I’d worn as a medical cadet, though these were higher quality so probably intended for adults. The tags showed they were my size, so someone must have checked my medical records. I wondered if Hawk had done that himself, or if he had an assistant in Game, looking up information and ordering things for him.

  Nathan took a long time in the shower. He came back wearing his new clothes and with his hair neatly trimmed, looking rather pleased with himself. I headed off and enjoyed a long shower myself. The cubicle had a lot of accessories, and I couldn’t resist trying out some of the ones I’d never
encountered before.

  I had a haircut, a manicure, a body glow, and added a temporary tattoo of blue flowers on my forehead to mimic the way I hoped to look in Game. I dressed in my new clothes, and admired my reflection in the mirror, deciding that I looked even better than I had in my glitz girl days.

  I finally realized how long I’d been in the shower, and guiltily headed back out to join the others. They were sitting in the seats again. Hawk had the blank expression that meant he was busy in Game. Nathan was staring at the ceiling and looking bored, but he grinned when he saw me coming.

  “Very nice,” he said. “I like the flowers.”

  Hawk’s attention returned to us. He gave me a startled look, and then glanced at Nathan. “Much better. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but those baggy things you were wearing were ...”

  I nodded. “Overalls are cheap and practical, but they aren’t much to look at.”

  “Now I think of it, I should improve my own appearance.” Hawk’s golden droid body blurred for a second, and then came back into focus apparently wearing clothes similar to ours. “Does that give a better effect?”

  “Oh yah,” I said, amazed by the transformation.

  If you looked closely, you could see the clothes were part of Hawk’s droid body, not something he was wearing, but to the casual eye he appeared to be a real man now. I found the effect rather disconcerting. When I was younger, I’d had a lot of fantasies about Hawk, so I felt awkward being so close to what appeared to be his physical presence.

  “We’re still nearly an hour away from our destination,” said Hawk, “so you can have a little doze.”

  “Erm.” Nathan made an apologetic noise.

  Hawk looked at him. “What did I forget?”

  “Would it be possible for us to have some food to eat?”

  Hawk raised his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head. “I ordered clothes. I didn’t order food. I knew I was the wrong person for this job. If I can’t remember that eating in real life isn’t optional then ...”

  “This is a luxury carriage.” I looked round hopefully. “There must be food somewhere.”

  “A luxury carriage will probably respond to voice commands.” Nathan paused before speaking in a self conscious voice. “We wish to eat.”

  A table promptly appeared from the wall, with a glowing menu displayed on its surface.

  “Yah!” cried Nathan.

  Hawk laughed, and then spent the next half an hour working in Game. Nathan and I spent the time stuffing ourselves with a three course meal of all the rarest delicacies on offer.

  “Warning,” announced the overhead speakers, “deceleration will be starting shortly.”

  Nathan and I sat back in our seats and the table withdrew, taking the remains of my rainbow-coloured dessert with it. The seat arms embraced us in an officious hug, and the carriage braked to a standstill.

  I was about to see the site of the bombing that had killed my father. I tensed, and my mind started conjuring up visions of mangled bodies. I knew perfectly well that I was being ridiculous. There’d be no bodies here, the people who’d died in the bombing had all been in freezer units scattered across body stacks in different parts of the world, but I still couldn’t help imagining horrors like dismembered limbs.

  I fought to block out the gory visions, followed Nathan and Hawk out of the carriage, and was dazzled by bright sunlight. I lifted my right hand to shade my eyes, and saw this was an open air transport stop, surrounded by an area of mostly flat grassland. I thought it looked a bit like a scene from Game world Meadow, but far more boring without the herds of wild horses and the flocks of glitterwings.

  I had an odd feeling that something was missing. It took me a moment to work out what was wrong. Every transport stop I’d ever seen had a platform with the red square of a delivery trolley hub next to the massive, black bulk of the vending machine. This platform had a delivery trolley hub but no vending machine.

  I forgot about the mystery of the missing vending machine, because a welcoming party of six Unilaw officers was hurrying up to greet us. Our interrogations fresh in our minds, Nathan and I exchanged wary glances, and instinctively moved to a position close behind Hawk.

  The Unilaw officers stepped forward and greeted Hawk with a barrage of compliments. Five of them were the usual Unilaw droids controlled by adults in Game, but I was startled to see a woman who was physically present and very obviously pregnant. She was wearing a silver bracelet on her left arm that was a close imitation of the bracelets players wore in Game. The Leebrook Ashton bill had been carefully worded to make sure that anyone who’d entered Game at eighteen still counted as legally adult if they defrosted. Presumably the bracelet was intended to emphasize that point.

  I watched impatiently as everyone fawned over Hawk, thought how idiotic they sounded, and then remembered my own reaction to meeting him. I’d been even worse than these people, gushing about Hawk being my all time hero, and eulogizing about him killing the Kraken.

  I comforted myself with the thought that Hawk would have forgotten all about that by now. He had far more pressing things on his mind than a dumb kid wittering on about how wonderful he was.

  Hawk took all the hero worship in his stride, acknowledging everyone graciously. Of course he’d had hundreds of years of experience with dealing with adoring fans.

  “These are my assistants, Nathan and Jex.” Hawk gestured at the two of us. “I’m hoping you’ll give us a tour of the bomb site.”

  Our escorts led the way along a wide concrete path, past a small storage unit, to where the path split into three narrower ones leading in different directions. We followed the path on the left.

  “You can see the protective force field of the server complex ahead of us,” said one of the droids. “We’ve got a lot of people going in and out, so we’re keeping a gap open.”

  I looked where the droid was pointing and saw a dome-shaped, opaque shimmer in the air. I’d heard about force fields but never seen one before. I frowned. The bombs must have been placed inside the force field or they wouldn’t have damaged the server complex. How had the bomber managed to get through the force field?

  It took us less than five minutes to reach the force field. For the first minute or two of the trip, I walked with studied dignity, trying to look as old and official as possible, but then decided I was wasting my time. Nobody was going to pay any attention to me or Nathan when Hawk was around. They might have noticed if I’d thrown all my clothes off and screamed, but I wouldn’t have bet Game credits on it.

  At close quarters, the force field looked like a strange, glowing curtain. I didn’t know what would happen if I touched it, and it seemed a bad idea to try experimenting to find out. I followed our escort through an opening, and grimaced as I saw a zone of devastation.

  This area of torn earth and rocks, these shreds of plastic, marked the event that had killed my father and thousands of other people. I felt that I should be saying or doing something as a mark of respect, but nothing like this had happened in hundreds of years so I’d no idea what was appropriate.

  “I should have brought flowers,” said Hawk, in a shaken voice. “There’d have needed to be thousands of them though. Eleven thousand, two hundred, and ninety seven flowers.”

  He turned to me. “My condolences, Jex.”

  I knew it was just a droid standing next to me, but I was deeply aware that the pain in the voice I was hearing was that of the real Hawk in Game. I rubbed the back of my hand across my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said. “We have to find out who did this.”

  The droid hand touched me on the shoulder for the briefest of seconds. “We will find out who did this.”

  There was a moment or two of silence before Nathan spoke in an awkward voice.

  “My condolences to you too, Jex.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  There was another full minute of silence, and then Hawk walked slowly forward, his head bent as he studied the cra
tered ground. Our Unilaw escort had been standing still, deferentially watching us, but now they all moved to follow Hawk.

  I forced my emotions under control, and made myself look round and take in the details of the bomb site. There were a lot of controlled droids scattered round the cratered area. Most of them had the distinctive blue and grey markings of Unilaw on their chests, but a cluster of a dozen Game droids were standing nearby. I saw that the insignia on the faces of most of the Game Techs controlling them weren’t the usual bronze colour, but silver, and then I caught sight of one with gold insignia.

  I realized Nathan had gone to join Hawk, so I was standing alone next to a group of intimidatingly high-ranked Game Techs. I hurried to join Hawk as well.

  Hawk turned to the Unilaw deputation. “Have you discovered any information about the bomb that was used?”

  The pregnant woman replied. “The crater pattern shows there were actually four small devices. They exploded simultaneously, triggered by a timing device. We can’t be sure of anything else. There hasn’t been a bombing for centuries, so we’ve no Unilaw staff with experience of bombs, and have to work from information in old texts.”

  “You could ask Romulus and Remus to help,” said Hawk. “They worked in bomb disposal before they entered Game.”

  The woman looked horrified at the suggestion. “I couldn’t possibly trouble two Founder Players. There must be other bomb experts among the players who entered Game in the first century or two.”

  Hawk gave his one-shouldered shrug. “I’m sure there are plenty who’d claim to be experts, but it could be hard to establish if those claims are true or exaggerated. I know Romulus and Remus are genuine experts, and if I can use a controlled droid to help with this crisis then so can they. I’ll get Pendragon to have a word with them.”

  Hawk knelt to study the ground in more detail. I didn’t know if he could make any sense of the oddments of wreckage strewn around us. I certainly couldn’t. I didn’t even know what a server complex looked like when it was in one piece.