Reaper

by Janet Edwards

  “You’ll just have to wait for your mother to call you then.” Nathan glanced back at the transport stop. “I wanted to talk to you about Hawk. You know he’s incredibly popular in Game.”

  I gave him a bewildered look. “Of course. That’s why the players insisted on Hawk being their representative rather than ...”

  I let the words trail off as I realized Nathan had said that to lead up to something. “This is about asking Hawk to help us? I’m sure he doesn’t understand that the Unilaw questioning has wrecked our futures. If we explain the problem to him, then yah, he might well agree to put something positive on our records and that would solve all our problems.”

  “He might even agree to sponsor us. Just think what that would mean. With Hawk the Unvanquished sponsoring us, then any Game world would gladly accept us as residents. You could have Ganymede again. I’d have my chance to become a Game Tech one day.”

  Nathan’s face was glowing with joy as he pictured that, but I wasn’t going to let myself build up extravagant hopes. I’d fantasized about the future before, and seen those fantasies brutally shattered. There was also the point that this particular fantasy was based on begging Hawk for help. That didn’t seem to bother Nathan, but it did bother me.

  I shifted uncomfortably on the rock. “We can’t ask Hawk to sponsor us. That would make us seem horribly demanding and greedy. We should settle for asking him to put a comment on our records, but we can’t do that now. Hawk’s under a huge amount of pressure. Over eleven thousand Gamers are dead, he’s worried there’ll be another bombing and more deaths, and right now he’s making a speech to try to reassure fifty billion terrified people.”

  “I agree,” said Nathan. “Asking Hawk for favours two seconds after we’ve visited the bomb site would be utterly selfish and stupid. We have to wait for the right time to discuss this with him.”

  He paused. “I really wanted to talk about Hawk for another reason.”

  “What reason?”

  Nathan gave me a wary look. “You’re a huge fan of Hawk. You’ve got a picture of his solo fight with the Kraken on your room wall.”

  “Yah. I’ve always thought that Hawk was the most impressive of the Founder Players.”

  “It’s a bit more than thinking he’s impressive. When Hawk arrived in the body stacks, you told him that he was your all time hero.”

  I flushed. “I was overwhelmed to meet Hawk, so I gushed a little, but you were just as bad as me. Your eyes were popping out of your head, and you were gasping ‘wow’.”

  “That’s true,” said Nathan, “but there’s one big difference between us. However much I admire Hawk, I’m not attracted to men, so I’m not going to start fantasizing about getting into a relationship with him.”

  “I’m not fantasizing about getting into a relationship with Hawk!” I snapped.

  “Really? Ever since Hawk arrived, I’ve felt as if I was totally invisible, because you’re always watching him.”

  I frowned. That wasn’t true, was it?

  “And it’s not just the way you watch him all the time,” said Nathan. “It’s ... Well, just look at you now!”

  I was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “The clothes, the hair, the skin, the pretty flowers. Do I have to spell it out? Back in the body stacks, you wore overalls and your hair was a mess. That was good enough when you were with me, but Hawk showed up and you instantly turned yourself into a glitz girl.”

  I remembered thinking that my new clothes made me look as good as when I’d been part of the glitz crowd. Somehow that made Nathan’s comment more rather than less annoying. I launched angrily into my own defence. “I didn’t go out and get these clothes, I was given them to wear and I’m wearing them. There were lots of fancy accessories in the shower, so I naturally tried them out. I seem to remember you getting a haircut yourself.”

  I glared at Nathan. “You’re only saying these things because you asked to meet me outside work and I turned you down.”

  “I’m not discussing this because I’m jealous,” said Nathan. “I thought you were an attractive girl even when you were wearing baggy overalls, and I enjoyed chatting to you about all the different worlds and creatures in Game. I had a weak moment when I couldn’t resist asking you out, but it was a relief when you turned me down. I knew it would be a huge mistake for me to get into a relationship with you.”

  I didn’t want to get into a relationship with Nathan, but I still felt offended by him saying that. “Why would it be such a huge mistake?”

  “Because I want to be a Game Tech.”

  “I don’t understand the appeal of that,” I said. “Once players pay their lifetime subscription, they can give up work and spend all their time having fun exploring the worlds of Game. If you become a Game Tech, you’ll never stop working.”

  “If I become a Game Tech, I’ll never want to stop working,” said Nathan. “You dream of exploring the worlds of Game, Jex, but I dream of creating them. It’s not just something I want to do; it’s something I have to do. I’ve got a host of ideas inside my head, visions of landscapes and creatures that are asking me to bring them to life.”

  He paused. “The only problem with becoming a Game Tech is that they aren’t allowed to have any ties with players. I know it has to be that way because Game Techs have so much power. The gods of Game mustn’t be suspected of having favourites among the players.”

  The passion in his voice had changed to distress now. “If I’m ever recruited, those Game Tech regulations will apply to me. I’ll have to walk away from everyone I ever knew, and never see or speak to those people again. I fell out with my twin brother over this. He said that if being a Game Tech was more important to me than being his brother, if I was going to break off contact with him one day because of my ambitions, then he’d rather we break off contact right away. He hasn’t spoken to me in years.”

  “I didn’t know you had a twin brother,” I said. “You’ve never mentioned him before so I assumed you were a singleton child like me.”

  “Splitting up with my twin was like losing part of my own body. I don’t want to go through that again with a girlfriend or wife, so it’s best that I stick to casual friendships.” Nathan waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m happy to just be your friend, Jex, but I’m worried about what’s going on between you and Hawk.”

  “The real Hawk is in Game,” I said. “The two of us are just interacting with a rather fancy droid that he’s controlling. Do you seriously think I’m planning to seduce a droid?”

  “Of course not,” said Nathan, “but I’m concerned that you’re getting emotionally involved with Hawk. There was a moment back at the bomb site when something pretty intense was going on between the two of you. Even the Unilaw officials noticed it.”

  “There wasn’t anything ‘going on’ between us, Nathan. How could you think I was having fantasies about Hawk in the middle of that bomb site? I was upset about my father’s death, and Hawk was sympathizing with me.”

  Nathan sighed. “I expressed myself very badly there. What I was trying to say was that there was a lot of heightened emotion between you two. We’re in a very unusual situation here. Hawk’s upset about the bombing. You’re upset about your father. Hawk may only be represented in the real world by a controlled droid, but you two are starting to connect on a very human level.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it so long as you don’t lose track of reality. Hawk’s a legendary Founder Player, with hordes of girls throwing themselves at him in Game. He must be very discreet about taking advantage of that, because people don’t gossip about him the way they gossip about Caesar. I expect the Game Techs help hush things up. Anyway, I’m worried that you’ll start imagining things that can’t happen, and end up getting badly hurt.”

  I knew that Hawk would have had vast numbers of girlfriends. I’d figured it out for myself before Nathan helpfully rubbed my nose in it. “When I was younger, I spent
a lot of time fantasizing about Hawk’s picture on my wall, but I know the difference between fantasy and reality. I’m fully aware that Hawk would never want to get involved with me, and I wouldn’t want to get involved with him either. I’d never agree to be in a relationship with anyone unless we were equal partners, and Hawk and I can never be equal.”

  I stood up. “We’d better go back to the carriage now. Hawk may be quite a while, so we should get some sleep.”

  We walked back to the carriage in silence. Once we were inside, I looked up at the ceiling and spoke. “I want to sleep.”

  A bed appeared from the wall.

  “Me too,” said Nathan.

  Nothing happened.

  He sighed. “I want to sleep.”

  This time he was rewarded with a bed. He lay down on it, while I stood looking at mine with a frown.

  “What’s the problem?” Nathan asked.

  “I don’t want to crease my new clothes and I had a thought.”

  I went across to the crate that had held our outfits, lifted the lid, and laughed.

  “What?” Nathan asked again. He rolled off his bed and came over to join me.

  “We’ve got several sets of clothes.” I checked the next crate and took out a bag. “Night wear too. They must all be for us, because half of them are my size.”

  “Must be.” Nathan collected a bag for himself. “I doubt that a droid wants to wear them.”

  I headed off to shower and change into my new luxury night clothes. I was already in bed and half asleep by the time Nathan walked past to get to his own bed.

  “Good night,” said Nathan.

  I grunted an acknowledgement, and drifted off into a dream where I was patrolling the body stacks. Somehow the endless banks of freezer units changed into the beaches of Ganymede, and I became the Jex of the silver, feathered hair. Hawk was with me, his arm round my shoulders, and we were looking up at the glorious spectacle of Jupiter in the sky above us.

  “Jex,” said Hawk, and his warm lips met mine. “Jex, Nathan,” he repeated.

  My eyes shot open. I was in reality, not in Game. The golden droid had become Hawk again, and I blushed remembering my dream. Nathan was right that I needed to watch myself. I’d had a crush on the legendary Hawk for years. It would be terribly easy and horribly stupid to let my feelings get out of hand.

  “I’m sorry to wake you up,” said Hawk, “but I need to discuss some things.”

  Nathan gave a yawn and sat up. “How did the speech go?”

  “I thought I was dreadful, but people seemed happy with it. The votes are already coming in, and it looks like the result will be overwhelmingly in favour of bringing Avalon back. People have varying reasons for that decision. Some just want the chance to pack things from their homes, some want to go back for a visit to pay their respects to the dead, while some are determined to stay permanently.” Hawk gave his distinctive, one-shouldered shrug. “That’s up to them. Avalon will always bear the mark of the bombing, but ...”

  He broke off his sentence. “Moment. I’ve just had another set of messages.”

  Hawk was glancing sideways, clearly checking his messages in Game. I grabbed the fresh clothes I’d left ready by my bed, sprinted to the shower for privacy, and dressed at lightning speed. When I got back, Nathan had dressed too, and the beds had vanished. Hawk was still concentrating on something we couldn’t see, so Nathan and I called up a table and tapped at the menu to order our breakfasts.

  We’d almost finished eating by the time Hawk returned his attention to us. “That was the Avalon Survivors Group messaging me about possible memorials. I’ve replied to them now, and I want to discuss my thoughts about the bombing with you.”

  Nathan and I hastily put down our knives and forks.

  “You can keep eating while we talk,” said Hawk.

  Nathan picked up his knife and fork again, and started gulping down the last remnants of his breakfast at top speed, but I decided I was already full.

  “Given the bombing happened so soon after the Leebrook Ashton bill became law, everyone instantly decided that some disgruntled teenagers were to blame,” said Hawk. “I thought that too, but now I’ve got more information about what happened and I’m starting to question my assumption. How could teenagers make four bombs and get hold of the code for the force field protecting a Game server complex?”

  “That’s been bothering me too,” I said eagerly. “Even if it was a large group of kids working together, I don’t understand where they’d get information on making bombs.”

  Hawk frowned. “In the days before the Game started, there was something called the internet. You could find out a lot of very illegal things using that, including how to make bombs, but first the internet got better policed, and then it was replaced by Game’s own information system. That definitely doesn’t hold any details of how to make real life bombs.”

  “I suppose a science cadet might be able to work out how to make explosives,” I said doubtfully, “and a technical cadet might be able to make those explosives into bombs, but how would kids get hold of the security code for the Avalon server complex force field?”

  “Maintenance teams make regular checks on each server complex,” said Hawk. “Perhaps a cadet working on a maintenance team found out the force field code.”

  Nathan swallowed his last mouthful of breakfast. “That couldn’t happen.”

  “I’m sure the code would only be given to the maintenance team leader,” said Hawk, “but a cadet might have seen it being entered and memorized it.”

  “That couldn’t happen,” repeated Nathan. “I wanted to know what a server complex was like, so I tried asking a few maintenance cadets. They couldn’t answer my questions because they’d never seen one. They told me that cadets aren’t allowed on the teams maintaining server complexes. All the work is done by fully qualified maintenance experts using controlled droids to work from Game.”

  I was thinking something that I wasn’t sure I dared to say aloud. Before I could make up my mind whether to risk it or not, Hawk said the words for me.

  “The simplest answer is that the bombing was organized by a player in Game who’d done maintenance work on the Avalon server complex. A maintenance expert would probably have the skills to make a bomb too, though I’m less sure how they’d get the explosives.”

  “But why would a maintenance worker want to crash a Game world?” asked Nathan. “It doesn’t make sense when they’re in Game themselves.”

  “There are signs at server complexes that say what Game world it supports,” I said. “The bomber could avoid being caught in the world crash.”

  Nathan shook his head. “A maintenance worker would surely know that a world crash would kill thousands of players.”

  “Perhaps that was the plan,” said Hawk. “Perhaps the bomber hated someone on Avalon enough to try to kill them.”

  “Why go as far as killing someone?” asked Nathan. “It’s easy to avoid anyone you dislike when there are fifty billion players and two thousand Game worlds.”

  “Avoiding people in Game isn’t always as easy as you’d think,” said Hawk. “I’ve been trying and failing to avoid Hercules for four centuries. I admit that we’re an unusual case though. It isn’t easy to avoid another Founder Player with less than a thousand of us living on Celestius.”

  “Avoiding people can be a problem for ordinary players too,” I said. “Decades ago when my mother lived on Ganymede, she had a boyfriend for a few months. When she broke up with him, he kept following her round and causing trouble between her and her friends. The Game Techs got involved, issued the statutory three warnings for breaches of Game rules, and then permanently banished the offender from Ganymede. Amazingly, that still wasn’t the end of it, because the ex-boyfriend kept finding ways to send my mother abusive messages.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Nathan. “What did the Game Techs do then?”

  “They lost patience and sentenced the ex-boyfriend to spend fifty yea
rs on Havoc. He wasn’t allowed to send messages to people on other worlds, so he couldn’t cause any more trouble for my mother, but the whole thing upset her so much that she ended up moving world to help her forget about it.”

  I paused for a moment. “I could believe someone as obsessive as my mother’s ex-boyfriend might want to kill an enemy on Avalon, but not that they’d crash the whole world to do it. Thousands of people would die, but with millions of players on Avalon there’d only be a tiny chance of their target being among the dead.”

  “The bomber might have a general grievance against everyone on Avalon,” said Hawk, “or might just want to kill random people for no reason. Some people are attracted by the idea of killing another human being.”

  Nathan looked bewildered. “If a player wanted to kill random people, they could just go and fight duels in the Battle Arena on Medieval.”

  “Killing another player in the Battle Arena, watching them die in agony, would be enjoyable,” said Hawk. “The knowledge that the death wasn’t permanent would sour the pleasure though. The winner knows that the loser will be resurrecting back in their home within minutes. Killing someone in real life, knowing they’d died a permanent death, would be far more satisfying.”

  There was something deeply worrying about the way Hawk said that. Nathan and I gave him matching horrified looks.

  “I don’t think that way,” added Hawk hastily, “but I’ve met people who did. It’s one of the reasons I gave up competing in the Battle Arena.”

  “Oh.” I tried to imagine what it was like to think those things, feel those things, and failed. I decided I should be glad that I couldn’t manage it. “I think I’ll take the Battle Arena off my top ten list of things to try in Game.”

  “Unfortunately, even if we’re right that a maintenance expert was behind the bombing, that still leaves us with a long list of suspects,” said Hawk. “Someone could have made a note of the Avalon force field code years or even centuries ago, and there must be thousands of players who are either current or retired maintenance staff.”