Patch 17 (Realm of Arkon) (3 page)

   Ivan held a fairly important post on Arkon's cybersecurity team, though his appearance—light skin, blond hair, high forehead—defied all my past stereotypes. Weren't representatives of his profession supposed to have an entirely unremarkable appearance? I could easily draw Ivan's portrait from memory even now. Sure, the company's cybersecurity guys weren't exactly CIA, but trust me when I say they were far from pushovers.

Following the bell's melodious ringing, a comely young woman in a conservative black skirt and white blouse walked up from the front desk. Cocking her head slightly and giving me a most welcoming look, she said:

"Is the monsieur expected?"

Naturally, having arrived on the last Parisian stagecoach, the monsieur smiled and took a look around. The café was small but cozy, with the customary French wine-colored tones...

"Yes, my name is Kozhevnikov," I said to the young woman.

"Please, follow me."

Ivan was sitting in a far corner, facing the entrance, over a cup of coffee and a lit cigarette. Upon seeing me, he rose to his feet and flashed his signature, picture-perfect American smile. For a moment, his eyes seemed warmer.

"Hey, buddy, long time no see!" he said. "How have you been?"

"Hey, Ivan!" I smiled back, answering his firm handshake. "How's Sarah and Sam?"

The young woman who had escorted me took my order of one espresso and withdrew.

"We're all right. It's you who's been having adventures," he shook his head.

We sat down. I produced a pack of Lucky Strike, put a cigarette between my lips and took a drag. As I exhaled, I asked him:

"As I understand, your phone call wasn't an accident? Or did you find out that I was nearby and decided to have some decency and finally see a friend?"

"Riddle me this, Roman, was it really necessary to punch out a Board of Directors member? Now, sure, plenty of people wanted to punch out this particular member. My guys were green with envy, watching that footage."

"Footage?" I asked with surprise.

"Can you really be so naive?" he winked at me. "The hotel is equipped with cameras all over—everything gets recorded. And a guy of Cheney's stature is nearly always under surveillance."

"So, that means—" I began to speak.

"It means nothing," Ivan interrupted me mid-sentence and fell back in his chair. "If that security footage hadn't accidentally," he emphasized the word, "landed on the desk of FBI Special Agent Foster—and I'm sure you've noticed the FBI sniffing around in Arkon's affairs—you, my friend, and the damsel you've rescued from the monster's paws, would be feeding fishes on the bottom of the bay."

I sat there, quiet and dispirited. This was indeed a jam.

"Thanks, Ivan. I didn't recognize him until it was too late." I took another drag and put the cigarette out in an ashtray. "So, what do I do now?"

"Don't thank me yet," said Ivan, completely ignoring my question. "My guys will lose your damsel somewhere along the way." He grinned and shook his head reproachfully. "Some conspirators you are! She'll be fine for the foreseeable future, and it should all blow over after a while."

"You were watching us the whole time?"

"What did you think? The FBI has the footage. They're going to want to interview you privately, by the way, so stay tuned. Anyway, on that footage Cheney is seen threatening you, and that's your get-out-of-jail-free card. If anything happens to you, that gives the FBI an upper hand on the company. Everybody gets it, which is why we were ordered to keep an eye on you. And only that."

I was finally brought my coffee. I took a sip and nearly choked from the thought that popped into my head.

"Were there also cameras in the hotel room?" I asked. "Cause we were, err..."

At first, Ivan was giving me a blank stare. Having finally understood my meaning, he burst out laughing.

"No, not in the room. But even if there were, it's not anything we haven't seen before," he assured me. "Though it wouldn't have killed you to be mindful of your neighbors as far as noise... Anyway, let's get serious. You need to understand that what I'm about to tell you transcends the bounds of even official secrecy."

I put my hands out in front and did the gesture of locking my mouth with a key and discarding it.

With a shake of the head and a sigh, Ivan asked me:

"What do you know about Arkon?"

"Only what everyone else does. It's a game world with full immersion. The world's most popular game, worth around two hundred billion. Roughly ten million daily connections, if memory serves me right."

"And yet, your own character is a measly level thirty five. Arkon is a world of possibilities. Wizards, warriors, elves and fairies. It offers the chance to become truly epic and achieve things you could only dream of in this world," Ivan peered at me with his eyes of cold gray steel, expecting a response.

I fell back in my chair and fired back without thinking:

"You know that I'm an artist, so I can spot fake from a mile away. My level thirty five warrior is there for work purposes—to roam around the different zones, check out the fruits of my labor. And when you know that it was all drawn by you... They can scream all they want about immersion and realism, but I think it's all crap. There's a disconnect between what the brain says and what the hands feel. For instance, you know the establishment near the Square of Heroes in Vaedarr,
The Black Violet
?" Ivan gave a confirming grunt, and I continued. "I was there only once. Picked up a girl for the night. And yeah, it feels good and all, but you can still sense that you're having sex with a rubber doll. Albeit an animated rubber doll. The tactile sensations aren't the same. Lilies may smell like lilies, but there's something off about them. I don't know how else to explain it. The point is," I produced another cigarette from the pack, "I think I want a normal life. To find a woman, settle down and start a family. And that's not an option in the game," I spread my arms.

"I didn't peg you for an aesthete, brother," Ivan smiled, "carping on lilies... I'll have you know that those who spend a lot of time online have a totally different perception of the world; for them, lilies are lilies. And the women are real. The analysts forecast that in another six months RP-17 will enter a whole new level of control. He's always learning, improving the degree of sensory authenticity so that even nitpickers like you wouldn't be able to tell the virtual world apart from the real one. Not that it would do you any good—there are plenty of women, but none of them can give you kids, that's just a fact. But I digress," he shrugged and creased his brow. "The truth is that things are dire."

"What the hell is going on?!" I couldn't take it anymore. "What's with all these spy games?"

"Remember the two girls from our PR division that disappeared? Monica Reed and Sarah Price?" He took out another cigarette from the pack. "Well, both of them had attended receptions at Cheney's mansion on several occasions." Ivan took a deep drag. "The cops only care so much about these things, but you know that the company can't afford to sit back. Any potential leaks must be plugged, and here you've got two employees with a level three clearance drop off the grid. When we started looking into everyone that was present at those parties, we dug up information on a project called Paradise—some kind of recreation zone in Arkon that's been placed outside the AI's control."

"But that's impossible," I objected. "Nothing can happen in Arkon without 17 knowing about it. He's a veritable demiurge—all changes to the system must be approved by him, and you can't change his settings without a shareholders' council and at least seventy five percent of votes." I looked at my frowning friend. "You read the news, don't you, Ivan? Arkon holds only forty one percent of the shares."

"I don't give a crap what's possible and what isn't." Ivan leaned forward, "Not when Hayes calls me into his office and orders me to stop digging, and then one of my guys brings me this," he slipped a hand into the inner pocket of his jacket, took something out and put it on the table, then pushed it toward me.

Resting on the table in front of me was a typical cheap video player of Chinese manufacturing, barely the size of a cigarette pack.

"What's this?" I inquired.

Ivan fell back in his chair and crossed his arms, then nodded at the player.

"Turn it on and see."

I shrugged and pressed Play.

The picture came on right away. Spread out on a table, bound with chains and whimpering pitiably was a Light Elf female—obviously a player, name Prissy, level 15, health bar in the yellow, numerous cuts on her body, wearing nothing but bra and panties. The decor abounded in blood-red tones, though only several pieces of black furniture and a huge mirror fit in the frame. Standing next to the table was a Dark Elf, level 178, name Kuwaz. He was holding an ordinary kitchen knife and standing sideways to the camera, keeping his face out of the frame.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he said with the voice of a good doctor, "we'll play a little more, and then we'll patch you right up." Cutting the bra with the knife, he tossed it aside, put his hand on the girl's left breast like he owned it, and asked, "how's this?"

Then he turned to the videographer.

"The hell are you recording for, idiot!" he screamed, his handsome face warped with rage.

"Relax, Ronnie, don't be so—" the other's voice sounded, but then the footage ended.

"Where did you get this?" I stared at Ivan. "This is... it's..."

"Exactly," he took back the player. "Does this change your tune? Is in-game torture impossible? Is rape impossible? Somehow I doubt that she'd consented to her brazier being removed. Oh, and Prissy," he held a pause, "that was the name of Sarah Price's character. She's listed as offline, but she's clearly there! You saw the footage—it's definitely Arkon, and not some Thai porn site. The button layout, health and mana bars..."

I kept a stunned silence. Torture was prohibited in the game, unless part of the game's story. A quest, for instance, might call for you to be caught and burned at the stake (the dark races sure had it made!), but in those moments all sensations of pain disappeared. But this—slashing and cutting with a knife—this was something else! There was always the option to log out and contact the administration. The offender's account would then be immediately and irreversibly banned. Removing another character's gear was likewise prohibited, including undergarments which could only be removed by mutual consent. The game was 18+, after all, and sex between any humanoid races was possible.

It was possible that the girl was a masochist in real life, that it was all orchestrated. But then why did her username match the missing employee's, and why was she listed as offline? I was thoroughly lost.

Ivan's phone rang.

"Hello?" I watched a frown come over his face as he listened. "Understood. Hanging up now," he said and put the phone away in his pocket, ruminating.

"You should leave, Roman. You've gotten yourself into a real shitstorm," Ivan declared, fished out a pen, and wrote down an address on a napkin. "We were ordered to lift surveillance off you. This is odd..." He handed me the napkin. "Go to this address. Lay low for at least three days, then call a cab and get the hell out of the state. Forget your phone here, and leave your car, too—my guys will drive it to your place later. Call me at work in a week. Now go, I've got the check. And good luck."

"Thank you," I got up and offered my hand.

He rose, enclosing my hand in his, and smacked me on the shoulder.

"Don't forget to leave your keys."

I put my bundle of car and house keys on the table, took one last glance at my friend, then turned around and headed for the exit.

Once outside, I took a look around, raised the collar of my windbreaker and, feeling like a character from a cheap detective story, hurried toward the subway. How quickly your life could change sometimes, forcing you to abandon everything—your car, house, job and coworkers—and run. Immersed in my thoughts, I missed the sudden shift in movement in a man walking towards me... A powerful blow right in the solar plexus and I doubled over in pain. There was a sting in my neck, and as I faded into darkness I heard the sound of doors opening in the van that had just pulled up behind me.

***

"How much longer, doc?" Cheney's voice filtered into my consciousness.

"Patience, boss. Look, he's coming to," another voice sounded to the right.

I opened my eyes. I felt horrendous, with my head a noisy mess, my muscles aching, and my neck feeling numb. I looked around the room: white walls, some kind of machinery droning in the corner, a computer desk with a monitor behind a row of six game capsules. I was sitting in a rigid chair in nothing but underwear, my hands cuffed behind my back. With me in the room were four people in plastic blue robes, and Cheney, sitting directly across and rubbing his hands in black gloves—was he cold or something? Standing on each side of me were two gorillas, and to my right a short balding fellow was putting an empty syringe on a cart with some kind of vials. I felt fear creeping up inside me...

"Hello, Roman," Cheney was looking at me like an old friend that he had chanced upon on the street. "Did you think I wasn't going to find you? How rude of you."