by L. E. Price
“You aren’t a lawyer,” Martigan said. “And even if you were, you’re not a Barrymore lawyer. You’re just some scumbag smog-sucker from outside the walls and you got caught trespassing where you don’t belong.”
“With a dead body,” Guinness said.
Jake lifted his gaze. He felt tired, mostly. Tired and angry.
“If I reprogrammed a gardening bot to kill somebody, I’d like to think I’d be smart enough not to be standing at ground zero when it went homicidal. Your techs crack it open yet?”
The cops shared a glance. They knew something, all right. Something that made them nervous.
“You should be more worried about yourself right now,” Martigan told him. “You know, we checked you out.”
“See anything you like?” Jake said.
“Your old precinct at Holiday told us everything we needed to know. They say you’re a real piece of work. One certified piece of crap who got kicked to the curb where he belonged.”
“People say a lot of things,” Jake replied, “when they don’t have to say ‘em to your face. Or when the guy they’re talking to has his wrists shackled. Face to face, man to man, big talkers usually change their tune.”
He had been wondering which cop would lose his cool first, coasting over the brink with his hand clenched into a fist. Guinness was the lucky winner. He moved in, circling the table with murder in his eyes. Jake was making his choice — fight back or take the beating — when an oblong rectangle of the wall to his left cracked and slid open with a hiss of compressed air.
“You can stop right there,” said the new arrival, a little man with a pocket-watch chain dangling from the pocket of his pinstripe vest.
Guinness froze. His fists unclenched. The new arrival unfurled a folded sheaf of paper and slapped it into his hand.
“Mr. Camden is in the employ of the Kensington family, and he is here with the family’s knowledge and blessing. You will release him into my custody.”
“He was trespassing at the scene of a murder,” Martigan said.
“You will release him into my custody at once.”
When triple-A credit spoke, even the law had to listen. Martigan grumbled as he unlocked Jake’s shackles, and the lawyer walked him out. He didn’t speak again until they were on the express elevator to the ground floor.
“Mr. Kensington is…concerned with your lack of progress.”
A few responses rose to Jake’s lips, and I just watched a man get his throat ripped open by the same people who put Trevor in a coma was at the top of the list. He swallowed them all back down. Before, he’d been keeping Trevor’s parents in the dark for his own safety. Now he was doing it for theirs.
“Tell him I’m making headway and I’ll have a full report by the end of the week.”
He could see the opening lines of that report now. Your kid was chasing an imaginary sea dragon and stumbled into a price-fixing conspiracy. Somebody inside Strategic Design Simulations — probably some rogue developer with his hands deep in the guts of the machine — caught him poking around, and they shut him up the only way they could.
If proof got out, SDS was finished. Which raised the most important question of all: was Trevor’s mind-napping and Mr. Rickey’s murder the work of a rogue insider? Or was it an order handed down from the top?
If there was a hit list in play, Jake’s name was on it. Figuring out the truth — and who he could trust — had just become a matter of life and death.
23.
The middle partition of the Kensingtons’ limo stayed up and firmly shut for the entire drive back to Jake’s office building. It was raining again, potholes steaming and a yellow fog clinging to the old, crumbling bricks. The limo stopped half a block short of Jake’s front door.
He pushed the button to lower the partition. The onyx wall didn’t budge. He knocked on the smoked glass. No answer but the faint ticking idle of the engine.
“Everybody’s pissed at me today, I get it,” Jake muttered. He pulled the acid-pitted hood of his overcoat on, adjusted his rebreather, and charged out into the rain.
This world had given him all the answers it could today. It was time to go hunting in a different one. He locked the office door behind him, hung his dripping gear on the coat rack by the door, and made for the couch. The game deck was waiting, amber lights ready to lull him into the dream of another life.
The blighted village of Hurst was dead ahead, and he stood in the crooked shadow of the town hall’s bell tower. Brandy, Prentise’s falcon, squalled as it circled under the overcast sky. The air smelled like rain — fresh rain, the kind that could wash these cursed streets clean — was on the horizon. A storm always just about to arrive, but never actually breaking.
Inside the town hall, fingers of silver light pushed through broken gaps in the roof. Dust danced along empty wooden pews and barren floorboards. Prentise sat perched on the lip of an empty desk, one leather-clad leg crossed over the other, whittling an arrow shaft.
“Empty,” Jake said.
“That’s why I like it,” she replied, not looking up from her work. “Used to be an NPC with a quest in here, but they moved him to the other side of the village a while ago. Since then? When I want peace and quiet, this is the spot.”
She held up the finished shaft, studied it, and blew a little sawdust from the tip.
“I believe I’ve found our culprit,” she told him.
Heavy footsteps turned their heads. Woody huffed and puffed as he stomped into the room. His dwarven beard was tangled, soaked in sweat.
“Just came,” he panted, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “from live-streaming a jousting tournament down in North Porcala. No coach service from there. Had to run. All the way.”
“You should give us a few minutes,” Jake said.
He had been deciding how he was going to play this. One look in Prentise’s deep green eyes and he knew the right choice.
“Why’s that?” Woody asked him.
“Because I’m about to willfully break a non-disclosure agreement with a company that could bury us a mile underground with the flick of a lawyer’s pen. And if you don’t hear me do it, you won’t have to lie later.”
Woody looked from him to Prentise and back again.
“You sure?”
“The situation’s escalated,” Jake said. “It’s not a safe time for keeping secrets. Not anymore.”
Woody put his hands on his hips. He stood his ground.
“I’m with you, man. Whatever you decide, I’ve got your back.”
“This deal with the keys, and the illegal apps,” Jake said to Prentise. “It’s not casual curiosity. And you were right. I’m not a tourist.”
She hopped down off the desk. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”
He told her. Everything, almost everything, going back to Trevor’s bedside and the hospital machines keeping him alive. His story ended in a white plastic interrogation pod. Woody’s mouth slowly dangled open as Jake recounted how his visit to the school had gone. Prentise’s expression didn’t change: firm as stone, with eyes as sharp as her falcon’s, taking in every word and appraising its worth.
“Magnolto is dead,” Woody said. “You’re certain. He’s actually, one-hundred-percent—”
“Happened right in front of me. Either he was the victim of a one-in-a-billion software glitch and the bot decided his throat looked like an overgrown shrubbery, or somebody jacked its operating system and turned it into a remote-controlled killer.”
Prentise had been silent since he started talking. Her slender finger tapped her chin as she thought.
“One thing,” she said.
Jake looked her way.
“You said the gardening bot shut down, after it killed the teacher.”
“That’s right. Like somebody pulled a plug.”
Her gaze met his.
“Why didn’t it kill you, too?”
Jake had been wondering that himself. He didn’t have a good answer. Not yet,
anyway.
“Still trying to figure that out,” he said. “The point is, people are getting hurt. Out there, in the real world. I’m thankful, to both of you, more than I can say, but I need you to walk away from this.”
“What you need,” Prentise said, “is to contact the Grid Regulatory Authority. Turn yourself in, tell them everything — everything except the part where you impersonated an agent, you should probably leave that out — and let them take over the investigation.”
“Can’t do that,” Jake said.
“And why not?”
“Trevor Kensington. That kid’s mind is still trapped here, somewhere in the game, and whoever’s behind all this has the key to setting him free. If the feds come storming in, tromping all over the crime scene, there’s no telling what they’ll do to him. Trevor’s life is in my hands. I’m not letting him down.”
“Our hands,” Woody said. He stepped forward and dusted off his palms. “I meant what I said. I’ve got your back, Jake. Besides. I’m a celebrity. Nobody kills celebrities.”
Prentise’s eyes narrowed. “Would you like me to provide an exhaustive list going back over a hundred years or two, encompassing the many, many ways in which you are wrong?”
“I prefer my illusions of grandeur,” he said.
“Fine.” Prentise turned to Jake. “I’m in.”
“I can’t protect you,” Jake said. “And we don’t know what kind of reach these people have—”
“I can protect myself just fine. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and let somebody get away with putting a kid in a coma. I’ve got a very low tolerance for people hurting kids. One condition.”
“Name it,” Jake said.
“We take this as far as we can. The second we hit a dead end, or if things get out of control, we bundle up everything we know and bring it straight to the GRA. We let the feds handle it from there.”
Jake could live with that. “Deal.”
“As I was saying, I do have something. I made both of my key deals last night and used the item-tracker to follow the chain of custody. Take a look.”
A two-dimensional rectangle blossomed in Prentise’s gloved palm, hovering an inch above the rough leather gauntlet. Pumpkin-orange text scrolled along the black window. The letters flared like someone was shining a flashlight through the words from the other side.
ObjID 02c99e38a (”realm key fragment — Goseris”) -> PID 39a38c11b (”Prentise Roquelaure”)
ObjID 02c99e38a (”realm key fragment — Goseris”) -> PID 82e12a29c (”Shandy Copperpots”)
ObjID 02c99e38a (”realm key fragment — Goseris”) -> PID 27b82d19e (”Merisaude Trine”)
“Merisaude,” Jake murmured.
Woody leaned in at his shoulder. “Everybody’s least-favorite dusk elf.”
Prentise tapped the window, bringing up the results from her second deal of the night.
ObjID 08d01a77d (”realm key — Goseris”) -> PID 39a38c11b (”Prentise Roquelaure”)
ObjID 08d01a77d (”realm key — Goseris”) -> PID 11d19f84c (”Oric of Red Falls”)
ObjID 08d01a77d (”realm key — Goseris”) -> PID 27b82d19e (”Merisaude Trine”)
“Two deals,” Prentise said, “one for a key and one for a fragment, both for the fallen god Goseris. Goseris’s realm hasn’t been open since late last year but all of a sudden two players were really hot to buy any keys I could get my hands on.”
“And they both passed them to Merisaude,” Jake said.
“Almost immediately. Both of them made the hand-off within two hours of our deal, which tells me it was planned ahead of time. I’m seeing two possibilities. Either Merisaude is posting a ridiculously high offer for Goseris keys, and both of these guys thought they could make an easy profit playing middleman, buying from me and then selling to her…”
“Or she’s the one using them as errand-boys,” Jake said. “Spreading out the purchases through different people. Making it harder for anyone to figure out where all those keys and fragments are ending up.”
“Exactly. And she would know not to approach me directly. I don’t do business with Merisaude.”
“But you did last night,” Woody said.
“And without this tracking app, I never would have known it.” Prentise curled her fingers. The window snapped shut. “We need to have a word with her.”
Jake thought back to yesterday’s airship ride. He had a fairly good idea where to find her.
“She and her crew have been hitting the same place all week.” He looked to Woody. “That dungeon, not far from the airship landing. What was it called?”
“Bleakfrost Rocks,” Woody said.
* * * *
The road to Bleakfrost Rocks carved a lonely gray line through the foothills, cast in the mountain’s shadow. The stone was coarse, textured like gray pumice, and the mist-shrouded air took on a tinge of bitter cold. Nothing grew here. Dead weeds marred the dirt, struggling to poke their heads from the barren soil, starved for sunlight.
Jake had been thinking about how to play this. Questioning Merisaude was going to be harder than confronting Rickey, the absence of killer robots and trigger-happy cops notwithstanding. He had leverage on Rickey. Here, he had words. Words with no weight behind them. There was nothing he could really do to Merisaude, nothing that would stick, and he didn’t have a way to track her down in the real world. He couldn’t even corner her; she was one logout command away from slipping out of his clutches.
So, he’d use words then. They’d just have to be the right ones.
“We can’t actually go inside the dungeon.” Prentise gave Jake a sidelong glance. “Well, you can’t go inside. The undead in there would eat you alive, and I mean that literally. But there’s only one way in and one way out; we can stand guard at the doors and wait for her to show.”
They didn’t have to go that far. Shadows were slinking along the northern road, shadows that became slender, lithe figures in black leather and purple silk. Merisaude led the procession, walking with a staff tipped by a bleached ram’s skull. Amethysts glittered in the ram’s eye sockets, matching the hue of her scanty gown. Her four dusk-elf henchmen followed in her train, two of them laden with heavy packs and a third hauling a bulky, lumpy sack like he was Santa on Christmas Eve. A soft and shimmering glow pushed against the burlap sack, something inside wanting to burst free and shine.
Jake, Prentise, and Woody came to a dead stop in the middle of the road. So did Merisaude and her crew. A cold wind whistled through the weeds as they faced off.
“Prentise Roquelaure,” Merisaude said. Her lips curled into a chilly smile. “Last time I saw you, you just had a mangy-looking bird. Now you have a mangy bird and two wet-eared puppies. You’re collecting pets.”
“We need to talk to you,” Prentise said.
“Oh. But I don’t need to talk to you. And we have an appointment to keep.”
Jake was watching the men at Merisaude’s back. He’d dealt with enough hired muscle to read their body language like four copies of the same book. They were on a tight leash; if their boss stayed cool, so would they. And if Merisaude got froggy, they’d jump.
“Just came from Bleakfrost, huh?” Prentise asked.
“No. We were out for a leisurely stroll in the countryside. Taking in the panorama.”
“I was just thinking.” Prentise nodded at the bulging burlap sack. “All that loot. It’s all profane. You’ve got to take it into town to get it sanctified and sealed.”
Merisaude’s irritation kicked up a notch. “Yes. That’s how it usually works. And?”
“And if anything were to, say, happen to you? Like, if you died on the road? It all goes poof. An entire afternoon of hard work, gone in a flash. Be a shame if that happened.”
The smile, cold as it was, died on Merisaude’s lips. She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. Behind her, the four men shared uncertain glances.
“Our god Tyrmok, Scion of Hate and Power, teaches us that the lesser race
s are to be pitied. That their feeble blood and weak spirits keep them from even dreaming of attaining dusk-elven glory.”
“Good for you,” Prentise said.
“He also teaches us,” Merisaude said, “that if the lesser races stand in our way, they are to be crushed without mercy.”
Jake’s hands eased toward his belt. He felt the weight of the bolas slung over his shoulder and wondered if he could manage a throw from this distance. The elves were standing in a tight pack; if he could tangle one up, take them out of the fight for a few seconds, it might buy an advantage.
Losing proposition. It would still be four to three, and Jake was the lowest-level player here. He wasn’t sure if he could even scratch Merisaude and her entourage. Prentise was shrewd; he figured she was bluffing, laying out the threat before offering an alternative. She didn’t disappoint him.
“That’s one way this could go,” Prentise said. “Or maybe I bring you down, poof your treasure, and walk away whistling. Or, how’s this for a third possibility? You tell us what we want to know, and not only do we not get in your way, we’ll escort you all the way back to town and make sure that treasure stays safe.”
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
Prentise looked to Jake. He took a step forward.
“Tell us about the realm keys,” he said.
Merisaude tightened her grip on her staff.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If that was true,” Jake said, “we wouldn’t be here. You’ve got to ask yourself: how much do we already know? And more importantly, how much worse is it going to go for you if you don’t come clean, here and now?”
At the top of Merisaude’s staff, the amethysts in the ram skull’s eyes took on a soft and icy glow.
“Or maybe,” she said, “the question I really need to ask is…what would your heads look like, mounted on my trophy wall?”
The mountain rumbled.
Jake felt the earth jolt under his feet. Loose stones fell, rolling down the pumice slopes and shattering on the weed-choked earth. He looked to Prentise.
“Earthquake?”
On his left, Woody was backpedaling fast. He unslung his war-hammer and gripped it tight. His head was on a swivel, scanning the horizon in every direction as he hunted for a threat Jake couldn’t see. Scimitars and daggers whistled from oiled sheaths as the dusk elves armed themselves for a fight.
