Raine VS The End of the World (43 page)

“But even if you’re right, and even if you succeed, are you just going to abandon this world and start over?”

The girl scratched her head. “I don’t suppose so. If there’s still a ghost of a hope, Raine, I’ll keep on fighting.”

“Good,” she replied. “You’d better not be pulling my leg. I’m going to hold you to that promise.”

“It would certainly be in your right to do so.”

“Then I’m in. But I’m not doing it for you. I’m fighting for Gerrit, and everyone else, and because it sounds to me like this is a game that needs beating.”

Lily had never felt so relieved.

“You’ve changed, Raine. And whatever’s happened to you is damn infectious. Lorelei doesn’t stand a chance against us. We’re going to find those keywords, we’re going to destroy the mainframe, and then we’re going to break out of here and save your boyfriend.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Raine announced, holding her hand out to Lily, who immediately gave her a confused look.

“Don’t tell me. I should know this one.”

“It’s a high-five. Here, give me your hand.”

Raine pulled Lily’s hand onto hers fast and they laid down some skin.

“Whoa,” Lily said, loving the gesture. “Let’s do it again.”

“For Gerrit!”

The two high-fived and returned their frantic work while Chance dashed off to chase some butterflies.

□

Gerrit awoke in a strange place. He was surprised to be standing in the midst of an enclosed arena, Standard Longsword and Leather Shield in hand. Stars glimmered overhead through the mesh canopy. Bloodied sands covered his feet. None of his wristwatch menus were operational.

Where’s the wind coming from?
He soon had his answer, as foul-smelling, multi-limbed beasts with no faces crawled through a permeable bubble shield, making a beeline for him. Two dozen at least.

Without a word, they formed a perimeter around the boy.

“So this is what you want, Lorelei?” he called out to the sky in a fury. “You fancy I should fight for your entertainment? Well, I refuse!”

A dark appendage whipped Gerrit in the chest, taking his breath away and sending him airborne until his back slammed into a pillar on the far side. It should have snapped the boy in half. The pain was greater than anything he’d ever known.

Recoil Protection Bracelet, gone. Ring of Uncommon Agility, MIA. Enchanted Tigerskin Muffler +12, sliced to bits. I’m naked.

Pulling himself up, Gerrit discovered that his vertebrae were slowly healing.

So it was Battle Royale. A warrior’s brawl to the death against an endless horde. Time to go out fighting.

The boy banged sword against shield and cried aloud, advancing.

He sliced the next elongated shadow fist that came his way and it splintered into a cascade of pixels.

Three more barreled forward. He blocked, standing firm on the ground, hiding his face while absorbing the blows. The shield held strong. Perfect.

Gerrit sliced through his opponents like butter. He danced against the wind. The creatures were slow, and fell in a matter of minutes.

He scanned their fading bodies for loot or recovery items. Nothing. The swordsman took a seat on the floor and waited for the second wave. It had only been a few seconds when his ears struck with the distinct clacking of the reanimated dead come to life. Just as he thought: skeleton warriors. Next it would be skeleton mages, then archers. Maybe goblins or wasps after that. Then, the usual assortment of pirates, thugs, and bounty hunters. He shrugged. It was going to be a long day in Purgatory.

↔

Lightbulbs flashed, crowds jeered, and virtual reporters continued to shout questions. Mister Senior, however, had said all he needed to say.

“To the virtual
Nexus
,” Jon barked to the nearest visible Templar as they clove a path through the gaggle of press awaiting him backstage.

Storming out the back door, he boarded his flying limousine, took a draught from a fresh bottle of cognac, and yelled for the driver to warp onto the
Nebula
.

The conference had been an absolute disaster. Following reports connecting the ‘Raindancer’ to Yossa, the rebellion exploded overnight at the Coliseum, and its influence sent ripples crashing through
Avidya
. As a result, minds were moved. Roused. Changed. Unavoidable questions were being asked that no one had been prepared to answer. Alternative news broadcasts spread like wildfire. The public was restless for the truth. It was a minority revolt, yes, but what a minority! Over four hundred thousand accounts were frozen overnight, a number quartered and heavily distorted by the centralized
Metaverse
media.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Glitches and random errors sprouted about all over the centralized system. Fell beasts were turning into collectible origami unicorns. NPCs began attacking Templars. A massive data blitz in the Greywind financial district turned it into a ghost town. Within minutes of the storm passing, hackers had broken into the system and wreaked all kinds of havoc. The stock market crashed. Physics went haywire. Underwater sections did lava damage. High-powered laser weapons turned to rubber on the battlefield.

Needless to say, people were very unhappy.

Better not to let the unstable Miss Guggell calculate the full cost of controlling this wreckage. The folks at QC were backed up for an estimated three weeks on paperwork and damages.

The shimmering neons of the
Nebula
blurred into vision as the limousine flashed through the warp tunnel and appeared in the ship’s virtual dock. Pixels formed into polygons and then assembled themselves into people. The door opened from the outside at an elevated walkway. Mister Senior descended, to not much fanfare, as frantic digital avatars scurried about the invisible floor of the hub.

Monitors from dozens of desks lent the room an eerie glow as agents sat hunched over their visors, typing at invisible keyboards. It would have looked to an outsider like a troupe of blind puppeteers. Mister Senior followed the winding walkway to the main hall, which boasted a direct virtual connection to each of the real-life
Nexus
server chambers, allowing him to appear separate from his body as a holographic avatar.

He walked through the translucent bubble that served as a selective doorway and stood at attention. A hologram of Queen Lorelei hovered calmly in the center of the room amidst an ongoing argument involving holograms of various
Endless Metaverse
moderators, including Dr. Marco, the reputable Dr. Karuishi, and General Beech, who stood by the Queen’s side, arms folded.

“--successfully blockaded the entire peninsula. Current intel indicates the EDC will cross our eastern borders in two hours,” Beech announced. “Macleod’s lying in ambush to mop them up like flies. Vis-a-vis the ground situation, we have to ensure that the Overseer runs with no interruption, and that means securing the damned servers.”

“Get to the point, Errol,” barked the Queen.

“We have over two-thirds of the populace still in our grasp. Cut the server completely and maybe we can salvage the more desirable assets by immediate transfer to the backup server hubs.”

“No, ma’am, begging pardon, but what the General describes is lunacy. We are looking at massive-scale genocide,” Dr. Karuishi protested, clearing her throat. “There’s absolutely no way we can hope to secure any more than twenty percent of
Avidya
assets in this manner. The backups are too unstable for a major op. Data corruption alone will be significant enough to snap tens of millions out into consciousness, and may even cause widespread comas or sudden death. We must wait out this storm and hope that the revolution loses power, or risk turning the assets loose completely if we don’t want to lose them all.”

“Enough,” Queen Lorelei murmured, pacing back and forth in the real-world chamber. “We split the difference. Compress the
Avidya
and
Maya
backups and partition them into enclosure cells. Pull all remaining hostiles and potential hostiles out of
Avidya
, drop them in, and cut them off. No loose tubes on this one; make the transition quick and decisive. They have serious hackers on hand.”

Dr. Marco nodded. “I suggest putting our best man on the job. What say you, Holdfast?”

“I’d be honored, sir,” Henry Holdfast replied, bowing to the Queen. Now infamous for his part in securing Gerrit, a.k.a. Public Enemy Number Three, Henry was perhaps a bit too eager to shoulder the responsibility. If the Queen took notice, she didn’t show it.

As he turned to leave for the
Maya
hexagon, Henry dared to smile across the way to Karuishi.
Strange behavior from these two lately,
Jon noted.
For starters, she’s way out of his league.

The Queen rubbed her temples. “I don’t care what you do; just keep the rebels separate from the main herd. Once this all boils down, recondition, freeze ‘em, kill ‘em, whatever you want. But not right now. Right now, priority one is freezing Lily and Raine.”

“B-but my Queen,” Dr. Marco began nervously. “We have no traces on them. The last we’ve seen of Raine, she was a blip over Atmoya.”

“There’s no way she’s still in hiding,” said the Queen. “What say you, Miss Guggell?”

The holographic double of the queen addressed the room calmly. Her figure was bursting with electro-static. Jon was in disbelief. Was she, too, still compromised by the data storms?

“W-we know Raine opened up a primary channel to the m-m-mainframe accessible from pretty much any exit node. We could s-s-send probes to every hub and server, leave no line of c-c-code uninvestigated.”

Queen Lorelei gave her watch a cursory glance, and then turned to her staff. They knew the look she was wearing well by now, and it terrified them.

“What are the chances we can secure every exit node in
Avidya
within the next hour?”

“With respect, it is impossible, Your Grace,” Dr. Marco murmured.

“I concur,” replied the suspect Miss Guggell.

“I eat impossible for breakfast. Do it. Lily’s plan is to shut down the
‘Verse
and compromise the HDP. She can’t do that from within a server, she needs direct access. If we don’t give them that, they’re just fish in a bathtub. Clog all the holes. I don’t care how much power it takes. Goddamn, you people should be able to figure out things like this on your own. Where the
hell
are you getting your training? I’m sick of wasting my valuable time. Wrathman?”

Jon looked up from the floor like a dumb puppy. Ever since he had failed to reprogram Raine, his life had become forfeit. He was a dead man walking. Lorelei’s cold eyes sent a swift shiver down his spine.

“Log out,” the Queen said, and whisked away to her private office. “I require you.”

The other Developers watched in pitying agony as Mister Senior pressed both fingers against his temples. In his head, he recited his personal secret exit code.

Within seconds, Jon was back in the real world, in his office. As always, his head throbbed from the sudden influx of stimuli. Groggily, he shot Beech and his android Colonels a withered look as he crossed the
Avidya
floor and meandered over to face Queen Lorelei.

As he creaked open the door, she was setting up a hole of miniature golf, ritualistically, painstakingly. She took her time, dissecting his fears. Keeping him captive. Jon felt extremely uncomfortable. It got worse when the Queen struck up a cigar in between putts.

“Smoke?” she offered.

“No thanks, ma’am,” he replied with a wry gesture.

Lorelei puffed like there was no tomorrow.

“The best thing about being in a position of power is the ease with which we can repair ourselves. For example, I can chain-smoke with no adverse effects. We can always get our lungs replaced, our blood transfused.”

“I’ll pass. They make my head hurt.”

The Divine Matriarch picked up a mug with his
Metaverse
avatar on it and set it down at the end of the green. She showed him his smug expression.

“You’re losing your cool, Jon. Wifey giving you trouble again?”

“No, not at all,” he said. “She’s just… worried, ma’am.”

Of course, his virtual wife had nothing to do with anything. He could alter her program at will. The Queen was toying with him. She tipped the ball into the mug and set it up again.

“You can’t imagine what I’m going through, dear. I’ve learned this morning that Lacie is dead.”

“Oh, Your Grace. I am so frightfully sorry.”

“My dear sister. Murdered in cold blood on a scouting mission.”

Sweat poured from the Queen’s face, dripped on the formless ground, and made its way towards the green plastic turf.

“I am filled with remorse, my liege. Who’s responsible for this atrocity?”

“It’s that girl. Lillian.”

“Impossible. It would take an army.”

She nailed the coffee mug again.