Multiplayer (21 page)

And then there were the things he’d heard. Visas. Tickets. A rehearsal for something called ‘Operation Scimitar.’ “The biggest yet,” the bearded one had said. Ned al-Nib. And this al-Nib was
paying
GoreFiendHell to use his Reavers to guard the peninsula. Real money, it sounded like. And why did Mal-X lie to this al-Nib about Izaak? None of it made any sense, but Chaz had said not to worry about it. Obviously, Operation Scimitar was what they were calling the invasion they were training for. But Hector was already starting to forget what they had said as he put Izaak to sleep. He wrote everything down as best he could remember, then turned off his game console and went to bed.

Ch. 17

Sabrah hated going to her father’s house. Hated that man. Hated his girlfriend. She was only ten years older than Sabrah. Ten years! And they had talked about getting married. And talked about Sabrah “having a mother again.” Were they insane? She already had a mother. And never, ever, would she call that tramp, “mom,” “mother,” “stepmother,” or any conceivable variation on that theme. Of course, there was no doubt why her father was interested in Sky – she looked like a super model with Laura Croft boobs. But her head was full of air – no doubt the reason her parents had named her Sky.

She slumped into the desk chair in her room, happy to be out of her dad’s lair, but not happy to be home. If only there was somewhere else. Hector’s question came to her mind. “What was the worst thing that could happen to you?” Hector, obviously, felt it was getting killed. Sabrah disagreed. The answer was much simpler: betrayal. Her father had done it to all of them. Her mother had done it to herself.

She stared at her computer. There was a place that was better. She logged on to
Omega
to see if anyone was still on, but they weren’t. When Hector didn’t respond to her text message, she sat for a moment thinking, then checked Thrylos’ status. He was awake. And she knew he must be somewhere in Alanya, so she sent him a private message to meet her at the same place they’d talked last time.

There was something comforting about the grizzled old empath. And he didn’t seem to mind spending time with her. It was nice to have him around, even if he wasn’t exactly real.

Ω

Veyron woke up and it didn’t take her long to realize Rada was missing, or that Izaak wasn’t wearing his armor. She’d never seen his character before without his helmet and body armor but there he was, stretched out in nothing but clothes and the fan shield Alkindi had given him. Somehow, she thought Izaak’s face would look like Hector’s, but it was just a generic male and looking at the unfamiliar features made her uneasy. Had she bonded with the game that closely? She thought about calling Hector on the phone to see what had happened, but he hadn’t answered her text, so was probably in bed.

She didn’t find Rada anywhere. Not in the cave, not in the house above, and not in the immediate vicinity. Chaz wasn’t even logged on. An unsettling feeling crept over her that something bad had happened. Well, ‘bad’ relative to it being a game.

The sky was turning morning-gray behind the peninsula and the beach stretched out in a long white ribbon until it merged with the darker rock of the mountain. Specks were already moving along the beach. Reavers. She shuddered. They had taken over much of the town and made it impossible to approach the castle. Eventually, they would spread this far and discover the Spartans were here. They should move soon, farther away.

But she hadn’t come to fight Reavers. She had come to see her friend. Picking her way through the ruins, she tried to access the powers that so eluded her. Don’t think about it, Thrylos had said. Think about it, Thrylos had said. Picture what you want to happen, he said. Empty your mind, he had said a second later. Concentrate on what you want to happen. Don’t expect any one thing to happen. It had been like everything else in her life, conflicted.

Rage welled up inside her and threatened to burst out as hot tears. But what was the point of crying? It didn’t help, and there was no one to hear her anyway. So she tried to concentrate without concentrating while expecting nothing to happen and not thinking about it, but hoping something surprising but also desired would occur.

It tied her in knots, and through the blur of the tears she was fighting back, she almost blundered into a swarm of scarobs out for breakfast. The sudden clicking of the mechanical pests jolted her like walking into a spider web. She jumped back and ran far enough to put some distance between them. But they didn’t follow, just stared with lidless, empty lenses. “Stupid bugs!” she shouted, and threw a metal bar at them. It hit one and broke off a solar panel. Their wings flipped out and they took to the air like angry hornets, except for the one that hopped back and forth like a bird with a broken wing. A moment later, they set back down and began repairing their damaged friend as if nothing had happened.

“That was diplomatic,” said a familiar voice. “Those scarobs seem to like you. They follow you around like pets.”

“Very funny,” she retorted, and scanned until she saw Thrylos picking his way through the ruins, coming toward her.

“Haven’t you noticed? Every time I see you, you’re surrounded by scarobs.”

“This whole junkyard is full of them,” she complained. “They’re like roaches.”

“How are your exercises going?” he asked, as he reached her side. “Any progress?”

“No. This stupid empath character is a complete waste of time.”

“Maybe you should try something else. There are plenty of other character types.”

“I don’t want to try something else!” she snapped back. Then felt like an idiot. After all, she had come looking for him. “Sorry. I’m just under a lot of stress.”

“You have a lot of anger inside you, Veyron. It is difficult to focus your mind when you are angry. I’ve done some research on this. The detectors that read our alpha waves are very sensitive and anger produces the most powerful and chaotic brain waves of all.”

“I can’t just turn it off,” she said despairingly. “I’m not a machine.”

“Have you shared this anger with anyone?”

“My parents don’t care.” They’re the problem, she thought. “And my friends don’t want to listen to my stupid problems.”

“Are you sure they don’t want to hear it?”

“I’m not going to tell them, okay?” This Thrylos could be maddening. All he did was ask questions. “So who’s left to ‘share’ this anger with? My scarob buddies?”

“You could share it with me,” said Thrylos.

His offer was compelling. But getting personal online – especially with a total stranger – could be dangerous. She’d had men try to solicit her more than once. Grown men. With families. This seemed different. Still… “There’s nothing you can do,” she finally said. “It’s my family. I have to deal with it.”

“You know, Veyron, I’ve watched people with every advantage life has to give – talent, wealth, opportunity, family – destroy themselves through bitterness. They accomplish nothing with their lives. And I’ve seen people with nothing rise to great heights by simply choosing to work with what they have, and not give up. It doesn’t mean they are always happy or even successful. They just make a choice.”

“Words,” Sabrah said dejectedly. “They don’t change anything. My life is what it is and I just have to live it. Just like this stupid game, I have to keep trying even though I know it’ll never work.”

“Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result,” said Thrylos.

“Are you saying I’m crazy?” Sabrah accused.

Thrylos laughed. “That came out wrong. I simply mean, sometimes the assumptions we are using to guide our lives and make decisions are simply not true so, we don’t get the results we expect. Once we see this, sometimes things snap into focus. Sometimes all that is needed is the perspective of someone who isn’t as close to our problems as we are.”

“And you’re that person?” said Sabrah dubiously. Why was he doing this? Did he really want to help? Or was he after something else and trying to get her to trust him? “Why do you care so much what happens to me? I don’t even know who you are, and I’m not going to tell you who I am so don’t ask. We’re just virtual characters in a digital world. None of this is real.”

“I disagree,” Thrylos said. “In some ways, this is more real than the world we live in everyday, where every interaction has a mask. Every statement, every look has a double meaning. Each action is weighed for its impact. There is what we say, and there is what we mean, and they are rarely the same thing. Would you and I be having this discussion if we had met in the park? I can tell by your voice you are a young woman – probably less than eighteen. You should be able to tell I am an older man. In the ‘real’ world, this conversation could not happen. It would be unseemly. But none of that matters here. We can be closer to our true selves here in this digital world than we are in what we call
reality
. The very fact we are wearing the masks of our characters allows us to remove the masks from our being.”

At those words, Veyron stood as if lost in thought. Or at least, Sabrah didn’t touch the controller. She stared at the screen, at the old man. For a moment, she struggled to remain strong, in control, but then felt the mask slip from her. And the tears streamed down her face.

Ch. 18

The words of al-Nib kept rattling around in Hector’s head as he tossed in his sheets. Operation Scimitar. Travel visas. Rehearsal. Izaak and his Spartans. Why were they paying GoreFiendHell? Why didn’t they want him seeing them practice? And the man in black said they had, “… terminated several players who knew too much,” or something like that. Like they’d terminated the
player
, not the character. As in… dead? Couldn’t be. Maybe he was getting paranoid. But whatever Operation Scimitar was, it didn’t sound like a game. These guys were taking it seriously – even more than GoreFiendHell was about his invasion of Athens.

The longer Hector lay there, the more anxious he became. When the sheets grew damp from sweat he hurled the covers aside and sprang out of bed in a single motion. It was nearly midnight and he crept to the end of the hall. He could see a light on in the den so he padded down the stairs and peeked in.

His mother was sitting on the couch with her knees pulled up to her chest, watching coverage of some conflict somewhere as usual. She and his father used to sit together, like that, and now she looked so alone. Hector felt bad for the trouble he had caused, and for disappointing her. That was the last thing any of them needed.

She turned and looked at him, quickly wiping away the glistening streaks on her cheeks. She’d been crying. Hector’s stomach knotted in guilt as she smiled and patted the sofa. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” he said, and plopped down by her side.

“Me neither,” she said, turning down the television.

He glanced at the wet streaks on her face. “Were you thinking about Dad?”

They sat for a few minutes watching. Then his mother said, “Your father used to get so mad when one of you would show up after going to bed.” She smiled, remembering it. “Because he was gone so often, he was jealous of the time we had together. After you guys went to bed was ‘our’ time.”

“I never noticed,” said Hector.

“He loved you very much, Hector.” She ran her fingers through his hair and Hector could tell she was gathering her strength. “What’s the matter, hotshot?”

Hector shrugged. “Must’ve been the tea I had for dinner.”

“It was decaffeinated.” She prodded him with her eyes.

Hector tried to ignore it, but knew it was no use. “
Omega Wars
.”

“Your game? What about it?”

“We’re – my group and I, the Spartans – we’re in Alanya. I told you and Pappous about it.”

She nodded. “Go on.”

“Well we’ve been there for a couple of days and tonight … tonight I heard some characters saying some stuff that sounded – I don’t know. Just didn’t sound right.”

She lurched upright, and her voice filled with concern. “Did they try to find out who you were? Where you live? I knew those games were dangerous. Did you report it?”