Heir of G.O'D. Revelations Page 9

  Back in the old pre-Devastation days, Musa worked with diamonds, carrying them across the borders that existed back then. She invested her smuggling money in legitimate businesses, specialising in something called Foreign Exchanges, where different countries each had a local currency. $uns didn’t exist before Sol, but when the simulation introduced its cryptocurrency, $uns soon became the safest way to trade and the world’s top currency. When Sol went offline after the Devastation, trade became harder and the world economy started to fail. Musa—although she never explained how—learned that O’Drae had been persuaded to bring Sol back in part to help stabilise the global economy. She loaded heavily in the markets and took advantage, constructing very profitable and far-reaching covert businesses.

  Musa pulls up the Sol-Escrow window that I initiated last night. A miniature of my avatar spins on the left, Musa’s in the centre and the engineer, blacked out and anonymous, on the right. Once both Musa and I have confirmed the transaction, Musa’s five per cent will go directly to her. The remainder will sit in Sol-Escrow until both me and the engineer confirm our satisfaction. Without the security of Sol-Escrow even I wouldn’t be taking this risk, regardless of the reward. I click confirm, and Musa does the same. My one million-plus balance dwindles to a four-figure total. “It’ll be worth it,” I assure myself. It has to be worth it. Having sold off almost everything of value that I owned in Sol, I have no choice but to remain positive. The engineer is receiving a huge fee from me, provided he completes the work. Despite everything, I can’t help but smile as Musa leaves us alone to organise arrangements for tomorrow.

  “What are you grinning at?” asks Denver.

  “My visor. I’ve been trying for so long, then those two who flaked out, but it’s finally happening!”

  “Yeah. Provided we survive the meeting. If your Heir theory is right, you have just needlessly spent a million $uns.”

  “Being able to see realworld will be priceless, regardless of what happens to Sol. I still think the Heir will save us, though.” I’m certain that Sol-Corp have the Heir holed up somewhere safe, ready to pop out on Baktun, right when its most profitable for Sol-Corp.

  Denver disagrees of course. “I’ve said before. Why would Sol-Corp let their shares drop if they had him already? Why would they almost bankrupt themselves and the company?”

  “For the $uns. And the power. The cheaper their shares become, the easier it is for Sol-Corp owners to buy them back from investors outside of the company.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  I’m too excited to argue, but the discussion is a welcome distraction as we wait for Musa to return. My fingers twiddle with the locket and I find myself sitting on the counter, swinging my legs. “If Sol-Corp does have the Heir corralled away somewhere safe, where’s the gamble? When the Heir pops up like the Saviour and does his stuff, Sol-Corp becomes the major conglomerate again. And when everything settles, the owners are practically untouchable.”

  Denver starts to pace the room, as he does whenever we disagree. It doesn’t take much to make him angry (his fuse is shorter than the tail of a Manx cat). His cheeks move as he grinds his teeth. “It’s not going to happen,” Denver declares after a pause. “If Sol-Corp had the Heir, they would crow about it relentlessly.”

  “If they don’t have him, it’s more reason to get the visor,” I reply, as Musa returns. I feel a sense of false pride at having turned Denver’s argument against him, it’s a hollow victory.

  Musa peers from one of us to the other. “I agree with Denver. The news would get out if they had him. Gana, the meeting is set up. Shattersoul, can you get her to Dubai terminal for 10 a.m. tomorrow?” Musa uses the speech versions of our avatar names, she has no knowledge of Denver’s realworld identity, at his instruction.

  “Awesome!” I can’t keep the joy from my voice, and I start to do a happy dance around the warehouse. The commotion drags a bemused-looking Samir from the shop front. “Iphy,” I yell, as Iph4k41is (Samir in realworld), joins us. I rush over.

  His avatar is shorter than Musa’s, but stands broader with thick-set shoulders. He peers at me from beneath the most impressive pair of eyebrows I’ve ever seen; jet-black to match his straggly beard and mop of unkempt hair. Samir’s smile is as broad as his companion’s though. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, Samir is the epitome of casual.

  “The arrangements all done?” The bemused hacker grunts as I squeeze him too hard.

  “Yeah, it’s awesome!”

  Behind us, Musa gives Denver detailed instructions on locations and the like, most of which mean nothing to me. Samir glances over at the pair as they wave their arms around, Denver the more animated, then takes my hand and leads me between some of the racks. I’m still bouncing with excitement.

  “Wait a second. Gana, hold up.” Samir uses a sombre voice when he needs to.

  “What’s wrong?” He sounds serious, but I don’t care. Tomorrow my visor will be upgraded. Tomorrow I will be able to see Samir. And Musa, and Denver, in realworld rendered vision and not horrible grainy CCTV. Perhaps Denver’s problem is that he doesn’t want me to see the real him clearly. Maybe he thinks he’s butt-ugly or something.

  “You need to be careful. Musa’s prepared as much as she can, but we’ve not dealt with this engineer before. He checks out, but even so, we will have people with us, just in case. You do need to be careful, Ganaleo.”

  “He’s legit, though?”

  “His background checks out. He upgraded a visor for someone Musa met a few months back. She visited the patient realworld to validate the procedure and discovered he was partially blind, now he works for Sol-Corp. Before the upgrade, the patient packed Pro-Bars by hand, he’d never seen Sol before. Now he’s learning software maintenance.”

  I’ve heard occasional rumours—none ever substantiated—of blind people who have escaped after being abducted by Sol-Corp. This is the first time anyone has mentioned someone choosing to stay behind to work for the frackers though. Regardless, if this is true then it gives me hope that there really is a life for me realworld when Sol dies. I won’t sit inside coding though; I can already do that (albeit badly). I want to explore outside without the fear I have now; perhaps I could take a mobile pack and go salvaging?

  “It’s finally going to happen, Iphy!”

  “Yes! But you still need to be careful. Listen to us. Be ready to follow instructions. Understood?” Samir refuses to continue until I nod. “There’s something else,” Samir whispers, as he guides me further away from the others.

  I don’t recognise the part of the warehouse we’ve ended up in, but then I’ve never had a need for the Sol vehicles lined up at the end of the aisle. The racks of clothing either side of us are making my head spin, a myriad of colours and shapes and types that I have no interest in (nor fashion-conscious understanding of). I love my outfit, it’s me, and people who meet me–and even those few weird people who follow my Arena career–seem at ease with my G.I. Jane look. If Musa wants to wear something different each time, or change several times a day, good for her. I tug imaginary creases from the bottom of my vest. Before Samir can speak, a purple-haired shop assistant appears at the motorbikes with a customer in tow.

  We head to the far end of the aisle and enter a cul-de-sac of automatic weapons. Samir checks around and pulls up a security dome so we can’t be overheard. Alas, these veils only function in the owner’s location, hence why I prefer to come here in person where Musa’s office is permanently shielded. “The extra ID you wanted will be ready for you tomorrow.”

  I asked Samir to set me a fake ID up after I had the featherbrained idea of cheating the system on the betting exchanges. As a competitor, I’m not allowed to gamble on my own Arena results, apart from a win bet (for obvious reasons). As I grew more desperate for $uns, and after the second engineer vanished, I got reckless and paid for a second ID. I thought if I could use the fake ID to gamble on myself losing, I could throw Arenas and make some extra $uns. Mad, I know, but it made
sense at the time. “I don’t need it now, Iphy.”

  “You paid for it, so you might as well have it. The ID’s pre-loaded with the $uns you sent me for set-up.”

  My avatar replicates a perfect facepalm motion. I’d forgotten about my ID – and the 100,000 $uns I seeded for the starting balance. If I hadn’t paid for the fake account and transferred $uns to it, I’d have been able to afford the visor, the gloves, and I could have kept my fracking food voucher! It’s not his fault, I’m the fidiot. “Thanks, Iphy. Where would I be without you, huh?” I grin as his avatar’s cheeks blush. I have a knack of making him blush. He’s an Oldearther (actually, at fifty-two, he’s a fracking antique), so maybe I shouldn’t... “How’s the hacking going?”

  Samir’s slumped shoulders and resigned sigh, combined with the shake of his head, reveal that the news is not good (and that he should avoid playing poker). “Not good. There’s no way to hack it. Whatever virus or worm O’Drae built into the code is locked inside Halley’s Comet. There’s no way inside.”

  If Samir can’t hack his way in, and Sol-Corp continue to fail as well, I’m going to need that engineer more than ever. “You’ll get there,” I say, squeezing his shoulder.

  Samir snorts and a trace of worry sets in his eyes. “We’ve tried everything. Did you hear that the comet moved closer to 3arth than Mars orbits yesterday? Only Venus and the Moon are closer to 3arth than Halley’s now.”

  By the time we return to the office, Denver’s jawline is tense and he’s sparser with his words than usual (quite an achievement considering his habitual conversational deficit). From his stance alone I can tell that he doesn’t want to be here, and its crystal clear that he doesn’t want me anywhere near Musa or Samir.

  Musa swipes open a trade window and drops in my new G28. The gun is cheaper than usual but not quite cheap enough that I can afford the gloves too. “I would do it for free,” she murmurs with a glance of apology. “The cost is locked in though.”

  “That’s fine,” I reply, inwardly seething that the developer of my G28’s locks the trade cost to the user (instead of setting an option where Musa could hand me the gun and pay the cost herself). As it is, the $uns go straight to the weaponsmith coder through Sol-Escrow. As a fixer Musa would normally take a supplier percentage but, on this transaction, her cut is zero. She also throws in a sub-inventory full of ammunition for free. It’s generous, but this stuff will likely be useless in a few days anyway. I accept the trade and the items drop into my inventory.

  We hang out for a brief time, but it’s obvious that Samir’s getting anxious and is itching to return to the comet problem. Musa too needs to focus on her business – with Sol closing all her staff are working around the clock and Musa, behind the façade, sags in obvious fatigue.

  “We need to prepare now,” says Samir, standing up and hugging me again. “But we will see you both tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait!” After so much effort to raise the $uns I can hardly believe that it’s about to happen, if all goes well tomorrow, I will see everyone for real. For now, Denver needs to return to Hamilton’s container because it’s time for the Team Arena, and he’s captain.

  -14-

  Denver leaves me some seriously delicious smelling flatbread stuffed with goats’ cheese, but I refuse the offer of his energy drink. I tried it once, and it tasted foul (as if something had rotted in the bottom of the tin). It smelt even worse than it tasted; he’s welcome to it.

  Denver and his squad approach every Friday’s Team Arena event with military precision. They fight on rigs installed in the same room, and each of them has a dedicated spotter (it’s highly illegal, but who can prove it)? I tried the Team room once, a Remembrance Festival Team Arena a few years ago, but the noise of so many people crammed in the same confined spacec—not to mention the rank boy smell—was far too much, and I ended up curled up in a foetal position in my harness. I’ve competed with Denver’s team, SCAR, a few times since (if someone gets sick or something), but strictly from the quiet comfort of my own container.

  The SCAR team-name is an acronym of the avatar names of each of the four team members. Team captain Denver’s avatar, $h@tters0u1, provides the ‘S’ in SCAR. Team healer Omar’s female avatar is called C@b@1i$t1c, giving the ‘C’. Nele-‘fracking-Mouse’-Damauskaite is the ‘A’ in the squad, @ng3l0M1rt1$, which allegedly means AngelDeath in mouse-squeak. Finally, Mika whose avatar name R@uh@11in3nL@ulu means PeacefulDream in Finnish, completes the team name with ‘R’.

  Even though I’m not involved in the action, I still watch them on the feeds. Today I’m grateful for the distraction, as time ticks by so incredibly slowly. The last hour felt like a day, and my thoughts continually drift between anxious excitement at the prospect of tomorrow’s meet with the engineer, and pure fear that I will have to go outside. It’s one trip though, one last sightless journey and then I’ll be able to see everything. Forever. I squeeze my hands into fists and concentrate on the Arena.

  Three competing Corps broadcast Arena coverage, but I tend to use Heropoint. They operate a swarm of micro-cameras, dozens of tiny drone-like hovering cameras that are programmed to follow any movement. Heropoint is part of the Bet3arth Conglomerate, based in the Mediterranean Alliance capital of Constantinople, and their coverage comes complete with Arm@g3dd0n’s commentary – I prefer his analysis over most, because he focuses more on the stronger teams than the other pundits do. Last summer, Arm@g3dd0n persuaded me to buy some non-transferable shares in Heropoint – which, sadly, are now worth next to nothing; regardless, I still feel an odd sense of loyalty to the brand.

  Using the Heropoint interface, users can select views from up to six individual cameras simultaneously. I set up my HUD to show two views of SCAR’s starting spot, with the remaining four looking out at the closest teams. Checking the starting grid, SCAR have a tough spot on the edge of the Arena. They’re surrounded by angry looking red dots that represent other teams, but at least their starting position is within an abandoned village that provides some level of cover. Thanks to a Samir hack, I can chat directly to Denver during the Arena, despite not being in the room (that is, provided Denver turns the link on).

  The entire team materialises inside the ruins of an old-fashioned colonial lodge. Their choice of jungle fatigues, camouflaged weaponry and faces painted in military greens, blacks and browns would have worked well in the dense forest surrounding the village. But, against the sandstone bricks of their spawn point, they stand out like targets in a duck-shoot. Moving quickly out of the village will be essential. Denver immediately starts barking out commands.

  Mika’s hefty frame takes up a guard position completely filling the only doorway. Nele (fracking-Mouse), moves to the window and quickly sets up her sniper rifle, pointing into the trees to the west. I know from my cameras, and the starting map, that the closest team is positioned there. Aside from her voice, which has this annoying nasal tone like a cartoon mouse, Nele is perfect (and not at all like me). Her profile reads one-seventy-eight centimetres tall, fifty-five kilos and blonde hair so long that you could tie a knot and escape from a window by climbing down it. She’s a fracker and she sucks. The pretty but diminutive brunette shielded in the corner is Omar, the group’s healer, with his hacked female avatar courtesy of Musa and Samir.

  When he’s captaining Team Arenas, Denver slides into full-on army-sergeant mode, even tougher than when he spots for me. He barks instructions and comments into the group-chat channel in clipped military vernacular, often just one or two words. Each team member is reduced to just a letter, so through the hacked link all I hear is ‘A, hit four-seven-eight. Guard left, C. Locate exit, R.’ The sirens blast out to signal the start of the event and chaos ensues.

  The very heartbeat the Arena’s activated, Nele snipes at the team to the west, firing deep into the fringes of the dense oak and cedar forest. Nele is renowned for her cunning tactics. I watch the group she’s targeting on the upper right camera. Her second shot takes out a kneeling marine i
n the shoulder. He spins back, arm hanging uselessly at his side, yelling for a medic. Nele waits for the toucher to appear, knowing that the healer must lay hands on the injured man for three seconds. She’s rewarded as the team’s toucher rushes to help her teammate, stepping too far out of cover and dropping as Nele’s bullet takes her in the back of the head. Just like that, a team is ejected from the Arena and their avatars fade away.

  Denver congratulates the Mouse—too enthusiastically in my view, for what was a textbook simple kill—whilst the rest of SCAR scan the perimeter for movement and listen to spotter chatter. Denver seems distracted and not his usual focused, driven (and occasionally obnoxious) self. Despite his lack of concentration, the team make it into the next building and set up. As another team assaults their position from the west, a massive commotion breaks out in the commentary.

  I switch to the highlighted camera and drop right into a major fight above one of the respawn points.

  The frenetic commentary from Arm@g3dd0n in his rich, British tones, continues excitedly as at least five teams battle from the floor of a crater, pinned by the gunfire of shooters attacking them over the rim. One of the Arena’s respawn points lies right in the centre of the crater, putting the spawning teams in direct sight of the Dastarding teams on the edge, who are exploiting the randomly generated spawn point. Not one respawning team succeeds in reaching safety within the allotted three-second immunity period, taken out and black-screening almost immediately as they respawn. In Team Arenas, each time a team black-screens the outer Arena walls shrink inwards, and any team that touches the wall automatically respawns at the centre of the Arena. Even though it’s random, one in every six teams appears here and the game enters a frantic death-spiral in the crater. I look at the first camera, set to follow Denver, and see the Arena wall rapidly closing in from the east.

  “Denver, you’ve got to move,” I yell, as I glance at the dome wall.