Thief in the Game Read online

  Diving, I rolled as fast as I could. With his forepaws out, he skidded right after me. I jumped for a rock and rolled quickly behind it. The wolf’s claws and his snapping teeth came after me and a I got a crossbow bolt right into his open jaws.

  I got to my feet with the crossbow in my right and the Colt in my left, looking to see Tag’s situation. With one wolf on either side and closing fast, I guessed Tag had the crossbow ready for the one on the right, so I shot the one on the left. I got his shoulder, though and only injured him.

  Running, I couldn’t risk using the pistol or the crossbow or I could too easily have hit Tag, so I jumped with the ax. The ax cleaved the wolf’s head in two. Very messy and not at all pretty. But impressively rendered.

  Tag and I headed for the bikes. There was nothing in the way of our reaching the institute now.

  “There will be something,” Tag said. I knew it, too.

  Climbing onto the snowbike I said, “Good shooting back there.”

  “Got that wolf for ya, Monk!”

  “I got three of yours, though.” I teased. “You’d maybe do better, react a little faster if you had a neuro-sim headset.”

  “How do you know that I don’t?”

  Good question. “Maybe you do.” I said, “I think that if you did you’d have adapted to the snowboard faster.” True. And a good catch. I was pleased with myself.

  “Yeah, well.” Tag fired up the snowbike. I started mine up, too. “I’m not swimming in juice like you seem to be.”

  Okay. Now don’t rush it. “We could make a good team though, don’t you think?”

  “If I wore a pincushion on my head? You think what I’m missing is a cortical crown?”

  I laughed as we set out across the ice. There was going to be something nasty waiting for us for sure. In the backpacks, along with the medipacs, three small and one large, we each had a short-barreled pump action shotgun, a high velocity rifle, grenades and a rocket launcher.

  Watching Tag bounce in the saddle of the snowbike, I was sure there was something that I was missing about him. Something obvious. I commed across, “I don’t know why you don’t use a helmet though, serious gamer like you. You’d get proper wind, cold, weight synthesis. Especially with a chair. Do you have a chair?”

  “What are you after?”

  Ahead, at the institute, there was movement. In the distance, it was hard to make out, but there seemed to be someone coming out of the nearest of the domes, out onto the ice. Someone or something.

  As I looked on the bike for a scope or a pair of binoculars, I said back, “I don’t know what you mean.” Then, I saw several people or things had come out of the institute. They were spreading out across the ice. I asked Tag, “Have you got eyes on the institute?”

  “No magnifier, no. Can you see what those things are?”

  As we got gradually nearer, I was able to make out their shapes more clearly. They were white, all the same height. Squat and cylindrical, they were wide at the base, with six or more short legs like stubby fingers. Higher up, two very long, spindly arms with two or three joints waved like the limbs of a daddy-longlegs. On top of the squat cylinder was a nest of probes and what looked like glowing lenses.

  The white bots spread out between us and the institute in a wide and even line. As we rode nearer, thick tubes extended from their trunks, all at the same time. The tubes pointed our way.

  Tag said, “Do you think that’s their way of saying ‘hello’?”

  “If it is, I don’t think it’s very welcoming.”

  “You think those are weapons?”

  While I was thinking about it, they all fired simultaneously.

  Troughs plowed through the ice past both of our bikes, inches away on either side. We stopped. They fired again. We turned and moved back. They stopped firing.

  On my comm screen, a contact had appeared for the Kingdom Institute. I patched Tag in conference and called the contact.

  A soft, feminine voice answered. “Thank you for calling the Kingdom Institute. If you know the extension of the person you’re trying to reach, please enter it now.” Then a pause. “If you know the name of the person who you are trying to contact, please say it now.”

  “Professor Lovelace.”

  “I’m sorry, that party is not available at present. If you know the number of somebody else who can help you, please say it now.” Another pause. “I’m just transferring you to the front desk to see if they can help route your call today. The front desk is manned twenty-four seven so it shouldn’t take long to connect you. Please hold.” And after a brief wait, “I’m sorry, the front desk is not available at the moment.” Tag typed a PM to me. There’s nobody there.

  Then the soothing voice came back. “If you know the number of somebody else who can help you, please say it now.”

  Tag said, “One-oh-oh.”

  “I’m sorry, that party is not available at present. If you know the number of somebody else who can help you, please say it now.”

  I typed,

  This isn’t going to get us anywhere.

  Tag came back,

  How wl we gt past the wlcom cmttee?

  Did you bring a MultiPass?

  Lol. No.

  I took out the high velocity rifle and fired at the body of the bot on the end. It didn’t damage the bot as far as I could see. All the bots fired again, this time all of them aimed either side of my snow bike.

  I PM’d Tag.

  The clusters on top look like sensors, right? Cameras? microphones?

  Tag came back.

  Yup. Snds right.

  Tag took out his rifle. Taking careful aim, I fired at the same bot again, but in the center of the cluster at the top. The nest of wires and lenses puffed, sparked and smoked. Tag shot the bot at the far end in the same spot. As he hit, the bot I had blinded began to let off repeating fire in a steady rhythm and it rotated.

  Tag and I retreated fast, ducking down as low as we could. The bot he’d hit began firing in the same pattern.

  I said, “Maybe that wasn’t a great idea.”

  Tag responded, “I won’t do it to any more of them.”

  The bots continued firing as they turned all the way around, only pausing when they were aimed at the institute or one of the other bots. So, they couldn’t see, but they still had some hive communication. Out on the ice there was no shelter, nowhere to hide. We could avoid the barrage of fire by staying low, but it didn’t leave us very much maneuverability. We got off the snowbikes and crouched behind them.

  Our packs gave us two rockets each, and there were twelve robots. Tag said, “I’ll try a grenade.” I gave him a thumbs up. He aimed for the bot at his end that was firing continuously. The grenade exploded in front of the bot. As the smoke cleared, the bot kept firing, but the rhythm speeded up.

  I rolled a grenade toward the firing bot at my end of the line. It stopped just in front of him. The explosion didn’t harm him at all. But the ice cracked and he fell in. The bots all started firing at us and we had to crouch and run side to side and roll as we pitched the grenades to stop in front of the bots. One by one, they toppled forward into the holes in the ice and splashed into the lake.

  We got back onto the bikes and headed for the institute. We pushed the snowbikes as fast as they would go, but the ice was starting to crack and the holes we’d blown in it were joining up. There was barely enough ice left in front of the institute for us to cross on the bikes, and as we sped toward it, cracks tore from the sides all the way out to the edge of the lake. What had been a sheet of ice quickly became a few floating floes.

  All around us, the floes began to slowly tip, upend and sink. There was no clear way to cross on the snow bikes. We ditched them and began to leap from one floe to the next. The remaining sheet in front of the institute broke up and fell into the water and the two we stood on were practically the only ones left.

  Tag said, “It’s going to be a tough swim.” I thought, Tougher for you than for me. I’m not
the one wearing a simsuit that’s going to try to simulate the resistance and the freezing cold water.

  The visual display made up for it as best it could, though. Swimming effort was slow going, the word

  COLD

  flashed in opaque pale blue all over the visual display so I only got glimpses of where I was swimming. Meanwhile my health was dropping like a stone. Tag sounded breathless. The simsuit must have been doing a fantastic job.

  “The pack.” I looked over. He’d taken off his backpack. He wasn’t going to drop it and let it go, surely. No, he moved it in front of him. The display flashing

  COLD

  COLD

  COLD

  made it hard for me to see. But he was holding it and clambering to it. It was buoyant! Brilliant. I did the same and it got me some way out of the icy water. The words

  COLD

  COLD

  flashed less frequently but my health was down to eight percent and still falling. Taking the big mediPac got me back up to sixty four percent. It was still dropping, but more slowly. As I kicked with my legs to swim, I took all three of the small packs and got back up to ninety two percent. Still, by the time we’d swum to the steps at the front of the institute, it was back down to eighty-two percent.

  I told Tag we’d better look out for more bots.

  Tag nodded. “Zombots. Built and installed to guard the place, but I bet there’s nobody left here to guard.”

  Reception

  UP THE WIDE, MARBLE steps and through the big glass doors, the reception area was airy with white and beige decor and furniture. Minimal, with long surfaces, graceful curves and soft, diffuse light. It would probably have been a relaxing ambience before mangled corpses had been draped on the couch and over the water cooler. The blood looked sticky and was by no means all dry, so whatever happened, it wasn’t long ago.

  The receptionist offered us coffee in the same voice as the answering system used earlier. Its flat smiley face was bland and in contrast to the gash through the top half of the bot, where cables and twisted armatures were wrenched as though an arm had been there. It probably had been an arm, because the bot kept angling it and pushing it towards the coffee machine. “Who have you come to visit with, please,” it said, “and what time is your appointment?”

  Tag blasted her with his shotgun. Her plastic molding and ornamental face shattered. The shells left her mechanisms wrecked and smoking.

  “Was that really necessary?” I was asking. I had a hunch that wasn’t the ideal solution to the broken receptionist problem, although I did understand where Tag was coming from.

  “I couldn’t bear to go through that all again.”

  From a door behind the reception area, two bots stepped out. Black, but otherwise like the ones we’d encountered outside, they had six finger-like legs, two very long, four-jointed arms, and weapons in the chest-height cylinders of their trunks.

  “Don’t shoot the head,” I reminded Tag as his shotgun blasted out. The shells scratched and dented the badge that said ‘Security,’ but didn’t appear to do much good otherwise. The other bot was coming toward me. It wasn’t fast, but its movement was creepily smooth and precise. I lifted the big bottle from the water cooler as high as I could and poured water onto the bot. It sparked and crackled and stopped. Before Tag got into any more trouble, I hurried over to empty what was left of the water over the nest of sensors on top of the other bot.

  Tag said, “Do you think that’s what you’re supposed to do?”

  “A rocket launcher would not be good in these close quarters,” I said, “And besides, we still don’t know if the rockets will stop them.”

  We passed around and behind the reception area and found a corridor. Slowly and cautiously we made our way down, peeking through each door, entering the rooms house clearance style. One stays by the door, weapon ready, while the other crouches, goes in low and sweeps to confirm there’s no threat. Then repeat for any connecting rooms before investigating.

  What we found were the smashed remains of bio research labs. Cages had contained animal specimens, rats mostly and a few monkeys. The animal carcasses were littered among the spilled fluids and broken jars. A couple of researchers were still there too, in their white coats. Face down, broken and sprawled like the monkeys.

  It made me sad. Even knowing they were just virtu’s, creatures in a game. I guess maybe I identified with them.

  In one of the labs we found half a dozen big medipacks, and in another were sets of night-sight goggles. In the office behind one of the labs, a memory card was in a desk drawer. A four-digit code was handwritten on the card. 2947. We agreed it would be best to finish clearing the building before we stopped to read it, in case there were still live hostiles on the loose.

  At the end of the corridor, a circular atrium with a glass domed roof had an elevator. Tag pushed the button. We stood too close to the door. The elevator pinged and then the doors slid open. Two figures lurched out at us. We stepped back, weapons drawn, but they just crumpled onto the floor in front of us. They were probably more lab staff. Whoever they were, they were pretty dead, and not in a nice way.

  The elevator had buttons for a dozen floors, all of them down. Tag reached by me, pressed the bottom button and, while we rode down, asked me, “So. What is it?”

  “What?”

  “What is it you want?”

  Through a narrow glass panel, murky depths of the green and blue lake outside darkened. I said, “Why so suspicious?”

  “I’m a thief,” Tag said, “I understand motive and I know a hidden agenda when I see one.”

  I was going to say, but you can’t see it if it’s hidden, but I held back. Too long talking to disembodied people who I wouldn’t ever be face to face with or have anything at stake had left me quick to shoot from the lip. This conversation mattered, and I had to handle it carefully. I was sure that if I told Tag what I really wanted, that would be the end of my chances.

  Still, I was pretty sure that, to make what I had in mind work, the other party would have to be prepared, to some degree at least. The elevator door opened.

  The round vestibule had glass more than halfway round. Long, greenish plant fronds waved in the dark water outside, illuminated by the pale artificial light of this underwater level of the institute.

  Tag crouched low, pushed the shotgun forward and stepped out first, couched and long-legged. Close behind, aiming and swinging left and right, I followed Tag into a circular vestibule toward the only exit, to the right.

  A dark, narrow corridor sloped away from the vestibule and led down to the cracks of light around the single door at the far end. I followed Tag, turning occasionally to check behind us. About a third of the way down the corridor, where it was almost completely dark, I said, “Wait,” and I put on the night-vision goggles.

  Farther down along the wall was a recessed cabinet. A switch at the side opened it and inside was a small, thick tablet computer, the kind that was commonly called a book. Taking the book, I figured it would be the way to read the memory stick we found up in the lab drawer.

  It was my turn to go first through this door. Cautiously, taking off the night-sight, I crouched. Quietly, I counted for Tag to hear, “One… two…” and then I went in. Inside was an office. A heavy desk was in the middle of the room. The light came from windows that took up three walls from floor to ceiling, illuminated by the lights outside.

  After I made a circuit of the room, all the way around the desk, I stood. On the desk was Professor Lovelace’s nameplate and a phone. Before checking the phone, we searched the desk drawers and found four small medipacks and a set of keys.

  Activating the phone, a media message appeared on the screen. An attractive, dark-haired woman with green eyes was on the screen. The image was shaky as she held the phone in her hand. Behind her image, the ceiling was the one in this office. She made the recording right here, sat at the desk. And probably not long ago.

  She spoke quickly, looking aro
und her. “I don’t know who will get this message or if anyone will, but for all of our sakes, I hope someone does, and I hope it’s someone who has the serum. I’m Professor Lovelace.” She looked around again and frowned. “They’re here. We can’t hold them off much longer. I’m afraid if someone doesn’t get here fast, they’ll kill us all. Or, worse, they’ll take us to one of their volcanic research locations. I have a feeling that’s why they’ve come here. They want to take me to Tamu Massif, and I think I know why.” She looked up toward the door, nervous, “Even if someone arrived here with the serum right now, it would still be touch and go whether we can save the human race.”

  There was background noise on the recording. Her eyebrows raised, then she looked back to the screen. “If you have got the serum, get it to the pharma lab on the floor above. The lab there is purpose built and set up to reproduce and manufacture the serum. I only hope the Raganarsch don’t destroy it before you get here. If you can make the serum, and I hope that you can, then take it to the submarine.”

  She was interrupted, looking up at the sounds of some crashes and bangs. “I know that I haven’t much time, but I’ll tell you as much as I can. The Raganarsch have been here before. Here on Earth. This isn’t their first visit. They came about six thousand years ago. I don’t know why they came, but I have a suspicion that they left something important behind.” There were the sounds of banging. I guessed it was the noise of her door being broken in, but I had no way to know for sure. She looked anxious.

  “The epidemic and the Raganarsch invasion, I think they’re connected. I’m almost sure of it. When they first arrived they…” then the view moved. The picture was still, and it was just a view of the ceiling. She’d put down the phone and left it on the desk. Exactly where I’d picked it up. The image was just of the ceiling of this office. There were sounds of a struggle, some grunts and a few thuds. Vague shadows moved around and then across the ceiling. Then the sounds of scuffle faded away and soon the ping of the elevator. Then, finally stillness.