Chapter Nineteen
I sat next to where Michael lay on a medical examination table, and watched the controlled droid of a doctor working on him.
“It’s just a few bruises,” said Michael.
It had taken seventeen minutes for a medical team to reach Michael. For seventeen minutes, I’d thought he was dead. During that endless time I’d discovered something. My head had decided to do the sensible thing, and refuse to get involved with Michael. My emotions weren’t sensible, and were already involved with him.
“Bruises, mild concussion, and an arm wound.” The doctor cautiously manipulated Michael’s right hand and wrist.
Michael winced in pain.
“And a sprained wrist,” said the doctor.
“All right, bruises, a bump on the head, a small hole in my left arm, and a sprained right wrist.” Michael sounded irritated.
“A big hole in your left arm,” said the doctor.
“It took a few attempts for me to find the medical chip and cut it out.” Michael winced again as the doctor did some repair work on his arm. “I need to get back into Game now.”
I bit my lip. Michael couldn’t leave, couldn’t turn back into Hawk the Unvanquished, before I had the chance to talk to him privately. I had to tell him I’d changed my mind. No, not exactly changed my mind. I still believed that any relationship with him would end with me being badly hurt in the future, but there was a new factor to consider. Not getting involved with Michael would mean me being badly hurt right now. I wasn’t sure exactly where that left us, but I didn’t want him vanishing back into Game before I had time to work it out.
“I’ve given you accelerated healing injections,” said the doctor, “but the treatment will need twelve hours to complete before you can be frozen.”
“I can’t wait around for twelve hours. I need to ...”
I didn’t let Michael finish his sentence. “The doctor is right. It’s incredibly dangerous to freeze someone who has an open wound. You have to let your arm heal properly before you enter Game.”
“But I’ve got fifty billion players waiting for me to ...”
I cut him off again. “They’ll have to keep waiting for another twelve hours. If you insist on being frozen with that open wound, the resulting tissue damage will mean you have to be defrosted in a few days’ time to have your arm amputated. Would you like me to talk you through the details of the amputation process?”
“No, I wouldn’t!” said Michael. “All right, I’ll wait. It’s probably just as well that you didn’t finish your medical training, Jex. Your bedside manner is terrifying.”
“Effective though.” The doctor gave me an approving nod. “Long term players are always impossible when they get real life injuries. They think it’s like Game, where they can go home and be healed within a few minutes.”
Michael sat up. “What about you, Jex? Were you hurt much when I cut your throat? The way the blood sprayed everywhere was terrifying, and I couldn’t see you breathing at all. It wasn’t until I saw you on my phone display that I was sure I wasn’t a murderer.”
“You should have known the blood was all fake, and the lack of breathing was only because I’d been injected with that drug. I just had a few bruises, and I was treated for those hours ago. Everything is healed now. Look!” I rolled up my sleeves and displayed my arms. “Not a mark on me.”
“It’s the state of your neck that’s been worrying me. I thought I’d cut too deeply with the knife and ...” Michael slid off the table and moved to give my neck a close inspection. “All right, your jugular vein seems intact. Let’s go and get a status report from Nathan.”
“I’d recommend food and sleep as well,” said the doctor.
“And a shower,” I added.
Michael paused on his way to the door, and sniffed himself suspiciously. “Do I ...?”
I laughed. “A bit. Mind you, I’d sweat a lot as well if I was carrying bombs around.”
“We don’t sweat in Game,” said Michael. “We don’t get tired physically in quite the same way either, though doing too much can get very wearing mentally. I’ve been having a difficult time since the Avalon bombing.”
We went out into the corridor. “There’s something I need to say.” I took a deep breath. “I changed my mind. About us.”
Michael gave me a startled look. “About us having a relationship?”
“Yah. I don’t want us rushing into anything, or ...” I broke off my sentence. There was no need for me to worry about us rushing into anything. Not when Michael was going back into Game and I was stuck in the real world until I was nineteen.
“I promise not to rush anything,” said Michael.
He turned to face me, hesitated, and then shook his head. “No, I just promised I wouldn’t rush things, and I desperately need a shower, but ... I’m glad, Jex. I’m really glad.”
We stood there for a couple of minutes, just looking at each other, before a pregnant woman came walking along the corridor. We hastily dodged aside to let her pass, and then headed for Nathan’s room. As soon as we were inside the door, Michael turned to Nathan.
“How bad do I smell?”
I laughed at Nathan’s stunned expression.
“On second thoughts,” said Michael, “don’t answer that. Jex has already told me I stink.”
He walked on into the main living area, and blinked as he saw the furniture crammed into corners and the holo worldscape dominating the centre of the room. “Is it possible to remove Game world Gothic so we can sit down?”
Nathan had been staring at me, mouthing a question with raised eyebrows, but now he hurried across to sit at his mosaic of screens. He tapped at the control bank, and the sinister landscape of Gothic vanished.
Michael grabbed a large, cushioned chair, attempted to drag it into the centre of the room, and gave a yelp of pain. I spoke in a withering voice.
“Michael, you have extensive muscle damage in your left arm and a sprained right wrist. Do I really need to explain why it’s a stupid idea for you to try moving heavy furniture?”
There was an appalled gulp from the direction of Nathan. Michael turned to give him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. That’s just Jex’s way of showing how much she cares about me.”
I didn’t see how Nathan reacted to that, because I was busy towing two chairs into the centre of the room. I sat in one of them, Michael slumped down into the other with a sigh of relief, and Nathan swung round in his seat to face us.
“Have the Game Techs caught the Reaper yet?” asked Michael.
“No,” said Nathan. “The Game Techs tracked his location to backstage on Game world Witchcraft.”
“What’s backstage mean?” I asked.
“It’s a Game Tech term for their special hidden areas on Game worlds,” said Nathan. “A team of Game Techs went to Witchcraft to arrest the Reaper, but he vanished.”
Michael was a fraction of a second ahead of me in asking the obvious question. “How did he vanish?”
“The Game Techs are still trying to work that out,” said Nathan. “When they confronted the Reaper, he disappeared. They assumed he’d used a standard Game teleport or world transfer, but their attempts to track a new location for his identity number keep failing. It’s as if the Reaper has left Game entirely.”
“He can’t have left Game,” I said. “If he’d somehow managed to put himself through emergency defrost, we’d know about it. After the Avalon bombing, any unscheduled defrost in the body stacks would instantly be reported to Unilaw.”
Nathan nodded. “It’s more likely that the Reaper’s found a way to stop his location from being tracked.”
Michael sighed. “If the Game Techs can’t find the Reaper, have they at least given us some information about him?”
Nathan nodded again. “The Reaper’s real name is Harper. He was the original creative director of the Game. That means he was the person who decided the base concept for each of the first few Game worlds.”
I frowned. �
��The base concept? You mean things like deciding Automaton would be centred on robots, and Coral would have merfolk?”
“Yah,” said Nathan. “The Game Techs are clearly devastated that Harper was the bomber. My impression is that they have a few troublesome Founder Game Techs, but Harper was considered to be perfectly reasonable. He just had a few ego problems and a grievance about the Game Company’s policy of anonymity for Game Techs.”
“I can understand Harper having a grievance about that,” said Michael. “He was the one who decided the concepts for the original Game worlds. He’d think of them as his own personal creations. When Game opened to the public, and people rushed in to explore his worlds, he’d feel entitled to fame and respect. Instead, he was robbed of recognition for his creations and forced to remain in the shadows.”
Michael shook his head. “Then there was another blow. People were flooding into Game, and more worlds were urgently needed. New designers were brought in, and allowed to supplant Harper’s position by designing worlds as well.”
“It makes sense that Harper attacked Avalon because it was the first world that wasn’t his creation,” said Nathan, “but why would he want to attack Celestius? Harper would have been involved in both its original design and the project where it was revamped to become the Celestius we know today.”
“Yes, Harper would have been the one who decided the basic concept of Celestius, with its castles in the air,” said Michael. “He didn’t want to attack Celestius itself, but the Founder Players who live there. For four centuries, Harper has watched all the praise and hero worship that should have been his being heaped on Founder Players like me. Harper built the Game, while we just played around in it, but we got the fame and honour instead of him. You can understand why he’d feel cheated by that and hate all Founder Players.”
“Umm, maybe,” said Nathan nervously.
“All that anger and resentment has been burning in Harper for centuries,” said Michael, “so what triggered him into taking action now?”
“For four centuries, the Game has been growing steadily in size,” said Nathan. “Last year, the Game company held a major review of potential problem areas. Everyone knows that review flagged the increasing amount of work needing to be done in the real world, so the Leebrook Ashton bill was passed. There was also a big reorganization of the Game Tech hierarchy, and Harper was deeply unhappy about the effect on his position.”
“Harper felt he’d never been given the recognition he deserved,” I murmured, “and then his position in the Game Tech hierarchy was threatened. He decided that he was never going to be famous and loved for creating Game worlds, so he’d be famous and feared for destroying them.”
“Harper began by crashing Avalon to shock the whole of Game,” said Michael. “That was supposed to be blamed on a resentful teenager, but it would be followed by crashing Celestius. Harper would kill a lot of the Founder Players who’d stolen his glory, demonstrate that both Unilaw and the Game Techs were powerless against him, and then make some sort of announcement to the population of Game.”
He paused. “Harper successfully crashed Avalon, but then his plan started going wrong. We worked out that a Game Tech was responsible for the bombing, which meant all the security systems were improved, and then Jex and I contacted Tomath. A couple of blackmailers were an unpredictable threat to Harper’s carefully prepared plan, so he decided to eliminate both of us. First he got me to murder Jex, and then he lied to me about when the bombs would explode. Harper didn’t time them to explode fifteen minutes after I’d planted them, but when I’d still be inside the force field. I was really lucky that I didn’t use the force field code, just dumped the bombs and drove away.”
I couldn’t help picturing what would have happened if the bombs had exploded just a few seconds earlier. Michael wouldn’t just have minor injuries, he’d be ...
A buzzing sound interrupted my thoughts. Nathan turned in his chair and tapped rapidly at his bank of controls. “A report just came in.”
“Have the Game Techs caught the Reaper?” asked Michael.
“No, this report is from Unilaw,” said Nathan. “Tomath’s been killed in an explosion.”
Chapter Twenty
“Tomath’s been killed in an explosion!” Michael and I repeated in unison. “When did that happen?” Michael continued solo.
“At about the same time as your bombs exploded,” said Nathan. “The Unilaw team were focusing their attention on you at the time, so there was a delay investigating.”
“The Reaper planned to kill Michael and me,” I said. “He must have decided to make a clean sweep of things and kill Tomath as well.”
“Yah,” said Nathan. “A delivery trolley took a parcel to Tomath’s room. The packaging said it contained a new luxury model phone, but it was really a bomb. When Tomath opened it there was a massive explosion. Fortunately, the kids in the closest rooms were at work at the time, so only Tomath was killed.”
Michael sighed. “Given how many people were killed in the Avalon crash, I don’t have much sympathy for Tomath. He might not have realized he was planting bombs beforehand, but he did once they’d exploded. If he’d gone to Unilaw back then, and told them what he knew, he’d still be alive.”
Michael was silent for a moment. “Do we expect any more drastic things to happen in the next ten minutes?”
“No,” said Nathan.
“Then I’ll go and shower. Hopefully that will stop Jex wrinkling her nose whenever I get close to her. Could you find me fresh clothes and something decent to eat? I had a sandwich earlier but it tasted awful.”
“That’s because the sandwiches from vending machines are packed with preservatives,” I said. “Those don’t just taste bad, but can attack your stomach lining and ...”
Michael hastily interrupted me. “Please, Jex, don’t tell me what horrors that sandwich may have done to my stomach. I’m already having gory visions of someone amputating my arm.”
Michael wandered off through the bedroom and into the shower. Nathan glanced after him, and then gave me a worried look.
“You told a Founder Player he stank?”
“I hinted that Michael could use a shower.”
“And you said he was being stupid when he tried to move that chair.”
“It wasn’t an intelligent thing to do, was it?”
Nathan frowned. “I heard Hawk kept annoying surveillance by jamming their spy eyes. What’s been going on between you two?”
I could feel myself blushing. “Nothing lurid. We just wanted some privacy while we discussed plans for the future.”
I wasn’t going to mention the kiss. It wasn’t Nathan’s business. In fact, none of what had happened between me and Michael was Nathan’s business.
Nathan shook his head. “You told me that nothing could happen between you and Hawk.”
“It wasn’t happening between me and Hawk. It was happening between me and Michael.” I waved a finger at Nathan. “And don’t start giving me dire warnings about Michael going back into Game and becoming Hawk the Unvanquished again. I know all that. I know things can’t possibly work between us, but ...”
I let the words trail off, and waved my hands in a gesture of helpless despair.
“I wasn’t going to give you any dire warnings,” said Nathan. “When we talked about this before, I was worried that you’d fall for Hawk, he wouldn’t be interested, and you’d get hurt. Things are different now. The way you were acting when you got back here after the fake murder told me you were deeply involved with Hawk, but he keeps throwing glowing looks in your direction as well. If you’ve got as far as discussing plans for the future, then he’s obviously serious about making things work between you, so I don’t see there’s a problem.”
“There’s going to be nothing but problems,” I said grimly. “It’ll be a year before I can enter Game. A year for Hawk the Unvanquished to forget all about me. Even if he doesn’t, there’ll be a four hundred year age difference, and a hu
ge power gulf between us. Every news channel in Game will be watching us and waiting for our relationship to fall apart.”
“You’re sometimes a bit pessimistic, Jex.”
“I’m not pessimistic. I’ve just had a lot of experience of things going horribly wrong. Now, you organize the clothes for Michael, while I order food and drinks for us.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’d arranged a table of food in the middle of the room, and a delivery trolley had brought a set of clothes. Nathan took those through into the bedroom, and a few minutes later Michael appeared.
I stared at him, confused by his appearance. It wasn’t just that he was wearing respectable clothes. He’d had a haircut as well.
“What do you think?” he asked, looking at me.
“I was getting used to your floppy hair, but I admit this looks better.”
“I felt I probably needed a haircut after four hundred years. You wouldn’t believe what that shower said to me.”
“I would,” said Nathan gloomily. “I really would.”
I laughed. “When I showered earlier, it told me to have my hormone boost in preparation for egg harvesting and fertilization.”
Michael choked. “Even in my worst days, I could have phrased that more romantically.” He looked at the table. “I see we’ve got blueberry apples.”
I nodded. “They’re my favourite. You should try one.”
Michael picked up an apple, and took a cautious bite. “This does taste rather good,” he admitted. “It isn’t going to do anything dreadful to my stomach lining?”
“Blueberry apples are highly nutritious,” I said.
We spent the next few minutes loading food onto plates and eating. Nathan and I finished our meal well ahead of Michael, because of his habit of cautiously inspecting each new item and taking nervous sample bites. I frowned as I watched him trying to decide if he should risk a piece of cake.
“I know it isn’t necessary to eat and drink in Game,” I said, “but people enjoy having picnics and banquets, so you must have met all these foods before. Is the problem that they taste different in Game?”
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