The Lag (The Game Master: Book #1) (21 page)

Something inside the gun whirred, rotating. With a humming noise, a blinding purple light poured through the gossamer cracks covering the tube that snaked around the barrel. It worked! Should he maybe try and pull the trigger?

Attila squeezed it ever so slightly. Immediately he sensed the same pull of magic as earlier by the trolley. It was weaker, but still it was attracting him to the sphere mounted on the gun. The skin on his cheekbone grew taut; his left eye twitched.

The booth rattled. A large machine rolled out enveloped by steam, its four tall thick-spoked wheels clattering along. Wayfarer sat in the cab, clutching a small control column.

Attila mentally called the vehicle a power cart. The name suited it somehow. Behind the cab was an open platform with bulging sides and a tall turret mounted on it. A fat metal tube snaked around the turret's barrel: a larger version of the gun Attila was holding in his hands. The barrel was fixed in its mountings, pointing in front of the vehicle.

Attila still stood aiming at the rocks blocking the tunnel. When he turned his head to see the arrival of the cart, his finger mechanically squeezed the trigger. Something screeched inside the ribbed sphere. The gun jerked. Attila staggered. A blinding bolt of purple lightning whooshed from out of the barrel.

Its light was unnaturally bright and piercing. The lightning cut through the tunnel and disappeared. With a shattering sound, the pile of rocks sank to the floor in an avalanche of crushed stone. Larger fragments showered the walls and the ceiling.

"Oh!" Beast crouched. "What d'you think you're doing?"

"I," Attila began, then fell silent staring at the power cart that had braked to a halt not far from him. "I know. They're mithrinol weapons."

"The ones Healer meant? Is that what we've come here for?"

"I think so. We've completed the intermediate quest."

Wayfarer spoke matter-of-factly atop his seat, "Concentrated mithrinol can syphon human souls. It's Gryad's analog of crude oil. The only difference being, crude oil is made of ancient organic matter and animal waste while mithrinol is the accumulated waste of ancient souls."

"Whose souls exactly?" Attila asked cautiously.

"The souls of creatures who used to populate Gryad in its mythical antiquity."

"Weapon made out of souls!" Beast whispered reverentially, his stare caressing the gun and the turret. "A mythical gun — a mythogun! That's how I'm going to call it. Oh yeah, guys. This is something you can't buy in a game shop."

"What's that?" Attila asked.

Something was moving by the disturbed rockfall. Without killing the cart's engine, Wayfarer raised his staff. The stones which had before formed an almost vertical wall had now crumbled all over the place. The mithrinol lightning had left a large gaping hole at their center. Squat figures were pouring out of it.

It took Attila some time to realize who they were.

"Dwarves!" Beast gasped.

The first of them was a true giant armed with a huge sledge hammer. He bared his teeth, growling, teeth gleaming above his shaggy beard. Smaller ones followed him, looking equally wild and feral like a pack of angry monkeys. Zombies, maybe? No. They all looked alive... at least as alive as a binary code can be. Dwarves devoid of souls? Just empty shells filled with rage?

"What's wrong with them?" Beast wheezed.

"I think they intend to satiate their hunger for souls... at our expense," Wayfarer replied. "Jump in, quick! We're off."

The dwarves' giant leader was already running toward them, the sledge hammer held high in his raised hand. His movements were jerky like those of a broken toy. As he ran, he threw his straight legs far in front of him; his head swayed from side to side, his eyes burning with predatorial fire. Some kind of mutant dwarf, really. Why was he so big? The others were much smaller... actually no, not everyone. There was another one there, also way too big for a dwarf and with the same kind of jerky gait.

They kept pouring out of the hole armed with picks, hammers, spades and heavy spears. One of them picked up a rock as he ran and hurled it at the cart. The rock just missed their heads. More rocks followed. Attila tried to shoot his "mythogun" again but it didn't work. A weak light emitted from the ribbed sphere.

"These things have a cooldown!" he shouted, climbing the cart's back.

Instead of following suit, Beast ran toward the shelves lining the wall.

"Wait!" Attila shouted. "Come back! We're going!"

"In a sec!" Beast bellowed back.

The dwarves were going for them, showering them with stones. Their eyes and teeth glowed on their crude bearded faces. Clutching another mythogun, Beast leaped onto the cart behind Wayfarer. Attila stood in the back alone, the turret separating him from his friends.

Beast raised the gun. A rock thrown by one of the dwarves reached him on its descent, grazing his forehead. Beast staggered.

"You freakin' midgets!" he roared, squeezing the trigger.

The ribbed sphere hummed. The gun screeched, spewing a thread-like bolt of purple lightning toward the dwarves. Attila didn't see what happened next because the cart jumped and reversed into the wall.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Wayfarer didn't answer. The vehicle swung round and rolled out through the shooting range's doorway. It took another sharp turn, throwing Attila onto the wooden seat attached to the back of the turret. No seatbelts here! If you fell off, so be it!

He braced the seat with his legs and grasped the turret's handle. How did you fire it? The cart sped along the bending corridor. Theoretically, it should be able to shoot in all directions, not just in front of itself!

Attila felt around it. There. He unclicked the lock on the swivel mechanism.

"Hey, watch out!" Beast in front of him shouted as the rotating barrel hit him on the head.

"Watch out yourself," Attila snapped back.

The turret turned, and so did Attila in his seat. Now he was sitting with his back to Wayfarer and Beast who was standing next to him, holding onto Wayfarer's seat.

Next to the long handle he was holding lay a shorter one. Attila clenched it with both hands. When the Dwarven crowd poured out of the shooting range, he pressed it.

A piercing light blinded him. A bolt of lightning escaped the turret. The cart shuddered. Rocks showered the tunnel as dwarves dropped dead in a hail of stone shrapnel.

The cart took another sharp turn. Attila clung to the turret, and Beast to him. The little car grazed the doorpost as it sped out into a new cave they hadn't yet been to.

The staff's light struggled to illuminate its walls. Everywhere they looked, the bulky outlines of cumbersome machinery loomed up out of the dark, reaching to the cave's domed ceiling. Enormous gear wheels; fat pipes, their supports massive like bridge pillars; ladders and grills... A silent mechanical city lay in front of them. There were also boxes and crates, whole mountains of crates, as well as pallets and shelves packed with some mysterious machine parts.

The cave was long and wide, cut in two halves by a road, a real road paved with polished stone. The cart sped past the machines. It felt like racing down a long avenue lined with skyscrapers. Shadows flickered in the near-dark; the stomping of many feet added to the sound of the cart's engine.

It took the speeding car seconds to cross the cave and ram the gate at its opposite end. The next cave was identical: together they resembled blocks of a huge underground city.

The stream of dwarves behind them had grown into a torrent. Beast clutched at his head. "There're hundreds of them! Are you joking? Where are they all coming from? Are they porting from somewhere?"

Indeed, the Dwarven numbers had grown suspiciously large. They snowballed, coming from everywhere, appearing from all sides, dropping off the machines and sliding out from between them. This just wasn't right, like in one of those zombie movies when they descend in their hundreds onto the scared film heroes.

"Alpha must have sent them, I'm sure!" Attila shouted. "We've found the weapons, what are we waiting for? We need to get back to the surface!"

"That's exactly what we're doing," Wayfarer's voice reached him. "Hold on fast! We're going up!"

Some distance ahead, the road ended in a steep ramp that led to a hole in the cave's wall high above the ground. Its engine roaring, the power cart began climbing, speeding through the hole into another cave on the floor above.

A rock flew through the dark, hitting Beast in the neck under the edge of his helmet. He gasped and collapsed on the cart's floor. His eyes rolled.

One hand on the turret, Attila grabbed his collar and pulled him away from the edge. Which wasn't exactly easy, considering his orcish bulk.

The cart was moving past a rusty metallic wall studded with air vent grills. One of them came off. A dwarf sprang out and leapt at them, landing onto the turret. He very nearly lost his grip but held on, hanging off it like a monkey. Bracing the turret with his legs, he went for Attila. Even though he didn't have any weapons, he clung to Attila's shoulders with a vice-like grip.

Too late to whip out his sword or reach for the mythogun slung behind his back. All Attila could do was punch him good and hard on the chin. A blow like this would have knocked out any man, but the dwarf only flinched and sank his teeth into Attila's fist. Attila screamed and used the fingers of his other hand to poke the dwarf in the eyes.

The cart bumped over an obstacle. The dwarf's hands slid off Attila's shoulders; he hung off the turret head down, swaying, bracing it with his legs. He bared his yellow fangs, aiming them at Attila's face. Attila headbutted his fleshy nose and recoiled, noticing at the last moment the barrel's movement. Wound with the steel tube, it now pointed above Attila's shoulder.

"Don't shoot!" Attila screamed.

Beast ignored him and squeezed the trigger.

Purple lightning pierced the dwarf's distorted bearded face, annihilating his head. Bare feet flashed in the air as the shot threw his headless body off the turret onto the tracks behind the cart.

The shot blinded Attila, sending colored circles spinning before his eyes. His ears rang, drowning out all other sounds. He opened his mouth like a cod on a marble slab, screaming silently, clenching his fists. Biting his lip, he looked around, struggling to see, still deaf from shell shock, and shook a fist at the beaming Beast. Sounds stormed back into his skull. Attila heard his own scream,

"You
idiot
!"

The Book stirred in his pocket; he gasped, hearing the familiar signal. Whipping it out, he glanced at the screen. He had connection. Skype blinked with an unread message. He opened it.

From Yanna.

Door locked. Can't get to laptop. Advise.

"Wayfarer!" Attila screamed. "She can't get to the laptop!"

... c
ard is pinned to Robert's...
Yanna read on the phone's screen.

What was that, now?

What card? Pinned to what? She began typing the question but Attila's green icon turned white in the Skype's window.

Dammit! Everything to please! Very well then, Yanna, think. Concentrate. What kind of card? — It had to be one of those swipe cards they use to unlock doors, right? And if it's pinned to something, it means that... what does that mean, exactly? Pinned to what? — to a bulletin board, a jacket lapel, a washing line?

For a brief moment, Yanna imagined a cheerful row of plastic cards pinned to a washing line by large colorful pegs. Why pinned? Why would anyone want to hang a plastic card out to dry?

She blinked. A vague image began forming in her head. A pin... a peg... She'd seen something like that in a movie... which was... yes! Office workers wore their swipe cards pinned to their pant belts with special pegs, didn't they?

Yanna swung round and headed back to the chief programmer's office. Just as she reached the door, a tall man in a lab coat appeared from the other end of the corridor. An ER doctor, definitely.

The doctor looked her over and stopped. "Excuse me. Could you direct me to the restroom, please?"

The restroom. She stopped. Hell if she knew. She'd much rather ask him how she could get to the unconscious Robert Artov slung with IV drips.

The doctor was short and middle-aged. Under his undone shirt buttons, a fat gold chain glistened on his hairy chest. His stare was firmly fixed on Yanna's cleavage.

Men were so predictable. She only had Mother Nature to thank for that. And still she could never get used to it.

He stepped closer. "You work here?"

Then she had a plan. An admittedly primitive one that could only work with an idiot... or a lust-struck male.

"Sure," she nodded. "The restroom's over there," she pointed at the storeroom, trying to overcome her timidity. "I can show you there if you wish."

Every word was a struggle. Yanna faltered and blinked, flapping her eyelashes. It must have looked as if she was flirting with him. Combined with her offer to show him to the restroom, the situation was suggestive to say the least.

The man grinned as if he didn't expect anything less from a pretty young girl. His eyes glistened moistly. What a creature.

"Come on, I'll show you," Yanna began walking back.

The man caught up with her and draped his arm around her waist. "If you insist..."

She wished the earth could swallow her up, even if she had to drop fifteen floors down. Still, she didn't force his arm away.

When they passed the switchboard room, the man started whispering things into her ear. She didn't listen, her embarrassment growing into anger, anger into fury.

By the time she pushed the door into the storeroom, Yanna was seething. And still she flashed the man a smile.

"Where's the light switch?" he asked.

"What do you need light for? You'd better have a look over there!"

As the man turned, Yanna grabbed the fire extinguisher and slammed it into his head, investing all her rage in the blow.

He dropped to the floor. Yanna replaced the extinguisher, trying to remember and keep the feeling she was experiencing. Rage! That's exactly what she needed! Had she just said she wished she could behave in real life the way she behaved in games? Oh yes, she could. From now on, this was how it was going to be.

She pulled the lab coat off the man and put it over her blue uniform. She swung open the locker and rummaged through the clothes until she found what she needed: a pant belt. She used it to tie the man's hands. It wasn't the best of bondage but it had to suffice. She picked up a washcloth, shoved it into the man's mouth and slid out into the corridor.

She walked back to Artov's office and entered the reception room. Taking a deep breath, she was about to push the door open when she noticed the name tag on her lab coat.
Dr. Joseph Botvinnik.
Oh, great. Good job she'd noticed. She couldn't pass for a
Joseph
, that's for sure.

Yanna ripped the stupid tag off. Remembering at the last moment the uniform beret still sitting on her head, she pulled it off and lobbed it in the corner just as she was pushing Artov's door.

She walked in.

Nothing had changed. The nurse and the guard were sitting side by side on the window sill, flirting away. Robert lay on the couch, motionless. His long hair stuck out from under the helmet. A monitor cast a yellowish light onto his face, making it look pasty like that of a corpse. Next to him, various resuscitation equipment was mounted on a stand, reaching its cables out to him, electrodes attached to his chest. On the green screen of the heart monitor in front of him, a bright light zigzagged up and down, reflecting his heart rate next to the glowing figures of his blood pressure.

"Can I help you?" the nurse sounded displeased. She had every right to be, too: the moment Yanna had walked in, the guard's attention had switched to her.

"I'm from the lab," Yanna answered, heading toward the couch. They've messed up the coagulation profile. Didn't Dr. Botvinnik tell you? The lab called him earlier."

"Nobody called him," the nurse curved her painted lips with distaste. "What are they like? All night he's been like this and they've only thought about it now."

Yanna moved the IV stand slightly, made a show of studying the tube clamp, then leaned over Artov.

A plastic card was indeed pinned to his pant belt. The card was secured to the peg with a pullstring you could unwind in order to swipe the card, then leave it hanging safely.

"So?" the nurse walked over to her and leaned on the couch's opposite end. She had the plain face of a village girl lucky enough to find a job in Moscow. "Everything works fine, can't you see?"

Yanna's gaze searched the equipment stand, looking for something to cut the pullstring with. As luck would have it, there was nothing around: not a scalpel or a pair of scissors in sight.

The nurse shifted her position, her body shielding Yanna from the guard. Excellent.

"Why haven't you undressed the patient?" Yanna demanded. "You could at least have removed his belt. Look at the buckle, it's all metal. Don't you know how sensitive all this electronic equipment is?"

She undid Artov's belt buckle, pulled the belt off him, unclasped the card and slid it matter-of-factly into her pocket, then headed for the door.

"I'll be back in a minute," she dropped to the nurse. "Get the patient ready."

In the doorway, she looked back. The nurse stood with her hands on her hips, glaring after her.

"Don't be too long," the guard managed.

Once out in the corridor, Yanna hurried back, faster and faster. She almost ran by the time she reached the utility room. She swiped the door open and ducked in without closing it. Still it was too dark. Yanna felt the wall for a light switch but only found a square hole with bits of wire sticking out.

In the far corner, she discovered a lopsided three-legged wooden washbasin cabinet. Yanna forced it away from the wall and slid her hand along its back. There! The laptop, taped to the wood. Casting glances at the door, she sank her fingers into the tape, ripping it off.

Finally, she managed to liberate the laptop. It was rather small: dark and well-used. She turned to the door when a voice screamed behind the wall,

"Help! Security! Somebody, help!"

The wretched Dr. Botvinnik had come round! Yanna slid out and bolted for the emergency exit. The sounds of voices and hurried footsteps grew louder. As she was about to duck into the stairwell, she cast a glance behind. Baboon Face was stomping along the corridor, accompanied by two guards, including the one from Artov's office.

How happy she was now that she was wearing sneakers and not the uniform stilettoes! Yanna took four flights of stairs in one hit. Then she heard more voices and footsteps — coming from below, people climbing the stairs. Judging by the pinging of their walkie talkies, this was security.

More guards were pouring in from above. Yanna swiped the nearest door and dove in, finding herself on Floor 13.

Another corridor, this one carpeted and brightly lit. The walls were paneled with wood and hung with paintings.

Yanna ducked into the first door and slammed it shut, pressing her back against the wall. Her heart was rattling like a submachine gun.

The corridor was quiet. Apparently, they hadn't yet thought of checking this floor. Or were they busy searching the one above it first? If so, she didn't have much time.

Yanna cast a look around. She stood in a small well-lit room with a desk, a chair, a phone, some computer equipment and a water cooler. Another door stood on the opposite wall. Yanna strained her ears and made out a quiet monotonous voice coming from behind it, a bit like a radio.

Clutching the laptop under one arm, she pulled out the phone and typed a message for Attila,

Got laptop. Need your address. Going there now.

The phone rang.

Yanna froze and shrank back, staring at it. The ringing soon stopped, but the voice behind the wall grew louder.

Yanna recovered and walked over to the other door. Opening it a crack, she looked inside.

A man lay on a recliner in the center of a spacious office. He wore a helmet: RussoVirt's latest MnemoSensoric model. Yanna had seen the ads on TV. She could see the man's face behind the helmet's rose-tinted visor.

It was Sergei Bagrov. RussoVirt's CEO. Her eyes opened wide, Yanna stepped closer. The recliner was surrounded by some strange equipment a bit like that in Artov's office. Monitors hung above the chair. Bundles of tubes and cables disappeared inside the helmet.

Bagrov's lips moved under the visor as if he was speaking to himself.

The phone in her pocket vibrated. Yanna whipped it out.

Richelieu St 6, #77. Spare key at neighbors. Quick, I'm dying.

She had to dash! Hadn't Attila said his house was somewhere nearby? But first... the figure of the man in the chair seemed to be pulling her like a magnet toward him. She walked over and peeked into his face.

Bagrov's wide-open eyes were rolled in the back of his head so that only the whites showed, making him appear blind. The RussoVirt CEO wheezed, his lips mouthing silent words.

What was he doing here? What on earth did all this mean?

Suddenly Bagrov's eyes clicked back in focus. He stared at Yanna with the dead gaze of a corpse. She gasped and recoiled.

"Your friends are all going to die," Bagrov said in a dull lifeless voice. "They've already entered my trap."

"Wait, wait!" Beast yelled in a voice so loud that even Wayfarer heard it over the rattle of the cart's engine and braked.

"Why?" Attila shouted back.

By way of reply, Beast jumped off the cart. In two long leaps, he covered the distance to the entrance they'd just passed on their way to yet another cave. He leaned against the thick steel gate, struggling to slide its rollers along the crude rut cut in the rock floor. Attila would have never made any impression on something that massive, but Beast strained his body, his muscles bulging, and forced it across the gateway that framed, picture-like, the approaching flow of dwarves. A whole sea of bearded creatures was rolling toward the gate, clattering and clanking their weapons. Some of the dwarves were twice the size of the rest but luckily, they weren't many. Attila even thought he could discern some other creatures within the crowd — definitely not dwarves — when the gate clanged shut.

Beast forced a heavy beamlike bar into its loops and darted back to the car.

"Wayfarer, go!" Attila shouted the moment Beast vaulted on board. "You crazy, man? That was risky."

"At least we've shaken them off now," Beast clapped his hands, striking sparks and little flames. "What d'ya say? They can't get to us now, can they?"

"I don't think that's gonna last. There, look-"

The cart was gaining speed. Beast leaned against its side and took a look from behind the turret. The gate was thundering and shaking under the blows, its metal denting.

"It won't last a minute, if you ask me-" Attila began when Wayfarer raised his voice over the noise,

"Another gate ahead, it's closed! Shoot it down!"

Attila pulled the long handle to turn the turret around but it crunched in his hand, breaking. The turret jolted and stopped.

"Turn it round!" Wayfarer shouted. "Shoot the gate down!"

"Beast!" Attila yelled.

"What would you do without me?" Beast hugged the turret, forcing it around. With a crunch it gave, turning slowly.

Suddenly Attila's vision blurred. A sudden sharp pain in his side made him cry out. Kidney failure, already? His left arm spasmed, his heart fluttering.