It had been six months since the battle. Lean was again at the top of his game, and the Golems had humbly absorbed their losses. Even Rollo and Tomasi Exley had recovered from the large bumps on their heads.
As this thought passed through the virus' mind, the yellow-haired Rollo came up to him, glistening with sweat, as usual. He saluted. Lean looked at him until he stopped. "What is it, Rollo?"
"Uh, boss, Tomasi said to come and find you," Rollo said.
"Did he say why?" Lean asked. He had long grown to continue to prod Rollo for information.
"Uh, yeah. The Golems found something when they were excavating for the expansion on the base."
Lean was now intrigued. He bade Rollo to lead the way, and followed behind the slow-witted Exley brother and emerged into a large cavern beneath the Negacrag Base. Lean saw the need to expand his Base. He had larger projects to do, and he wanted everything shielded from System Omega-Cragis' harsh environment.
Down in the area beneath the abandoned lab of the Base, Tomasi stood. He was a few inches taller than his brother and was just as broad and deep in the chest. He jerked a thumb at a tunnel that was flanked by a pair of golems. "Hey, boss, check out what we found."
"A tunnel." Lean was unimpressed. "So. What. The Golems have dozens of them."
"Not any in this part of the mountain," Tomasi said. "I asked them. They said the 'isheri' built this."
Lean frowned. "Isheri. That's Hatemil."
"Right," Tomasi said. "But I don't speak Anthro. What's it mean, boss?"
Lean frowned further. "It means 'danger-man,' but that doesn't make any sense--" He broke off. "Oh, by the Maker. Van der Waals."
"The doc?" Rollo asked. "Why'd he wanna put something down here?"
Tomasi's scowl darkened. "You'll find out." He walked into the tunnel, motioning for Lean to follow. The virus did so and emerged into a large room filled with machinery. Lean looked around and wolf-growled. "The goddamn User was embezzling machinery?"
"Not just that, boss," Tomasi said, "but look what he built with it." He indicated the unlit part of the room. Lean looked into the gloom and howled like the wolf he was named for.
A Gateway.
--Dr. Hadden, Immoral Practices
He spun his legs out into space and pulled the brace over. He slipped one leg in, then the other, and pressed the control on his bedside table. A hoverchair skimmed over to him and turned obediently. Using the brace to hold himself upright, Quinn turned himself around and sat down heavily in the hoverchair. As the brace clicked into the chair, there was a slight buzz, and then the micro-machinery in the brace began to stimulate the muscles in his legs.
Quinn looked a lot different than he had six months ago. He wore his hair close-cut now, almost military-like. There were faded scars on his face and arms and chest. His legs too, but those scars were always covered by the pants that he wore. He didn't smile anymore. His eyes reflected a cynical and injured bitterness at the world in general.
He removed his night-shirt and moved his chair over to his dresser. He pulled out a blue-and-black shirt and squirmed into it, then skimmed on into the kitchen.
He smacked a button on his chair, and a small vid-window opened in front of him and moved along with him as he fixed himself a waffle for breakfast. The daily news scrolled past him. News about the Guardians, this Alpha Group. Rumors were abound that some sprite knew some sprite who heard that someone had seen the Dark Sentinel.
The World Council was slow, as usual. The Industry (i.e., the movie industry) had released a new pic by Martin O'Brien that seemed a guaranteed win for Best of Holo. More rumors about whether or not the hit novel Game Over would ever be made into a pic, and various letters to the editor clamoring for another Detterick Noble novel from Quinn Rentack.
Quinn slapped the button again and the vid-window shut. He pressed another one and his messages came up. Bill collector, tax collector, You may have already won four million credits, publisher, landlord, Industry-people asking for script-approval. Quinn slapped the button and closed his messages without replying. He grabbed his waffle from the microwave and gnawed on it.
He swallowed a mouthful and then grabbed a half-empty half-gallon jug of milk from his fridge. He gulped down a swallow, then thought. He stuffed the rest of the waffle in his mouth, swallowed it, then polished off the milk and tossed the empty jug into the garbage disposal.
Quinn skimmed into his living room and pulled over his writing terminal. The keyboard materialized as he touched it and the screen sprang into life. His fingers were poised, and he thought for a moment. He'd secured himself a job as a columnist for the Resonate Clarion. His columns had already been picked up by the Mainframe Manifest and the Global Report. His articles were usually criticisms of whatever was bothering him. Sometimes it was the publishers, sometimes it was the Industry, sometimes the World Council. But today he was planning to really bring out the acid.
The Government doesn't like cover-ups, because it always means somebody screwed up. The press doesn't like cover-ups because they have to waste time they'd rather use exploiting holo-actors, covering a Government screw-up that they'd rather have left alone. The public doesn't like cover-ups because it means they've been lied to. The conspiracy theorists hate cover-ups because it gives their already-addled brains something else to contend with.
So everyone, prepare to hate me, because I'm about to reveal a cover-up.
Way back when Project Metaverse first started, the Government shut down three colony worlds. We've all heard of them. The Omega-class worlds. And you've all heard the rumors: nasty monsters, lethal environments, deadly plagues. Some say the Omegas no longer exist, that the government erased them.
Well, they weren't, people. They're still there. And one of them, which certain parties who shall remain nameless have dubbed Omega-Cragis. That's a lot to write. Let's just call it Cragis.
Now, Cragis is not home to some evil plague like the Black Death, or Ebola, or Captain Trips. It's home to a big, butt-ugly race of creatures called Golems. Picture, if you will, a monster with the temperment of a rabid rhino. Got that? Okay. Multiply it by ten, tack on some granite skin, lava blood, claws, teeth, red eyes, and an eight-foot-tall height with muscles from here to the Web, and you've got yourself a Golem.
And that's not all! Cragis is so named because it has more volcanic activity than Turkey, Hawaii, the Phillipines, and Indonesia combined and multiplied by twenty, with volcanoes every three kilometers, cracks in the ground that make the Grand Canyon look like a scratch in the dirt, and storms in the sky 24-7.
It gets better. Around eight years ago, a virus calling himself 'the Wolf'--you've all heard of him, I'm sure--got into Cragis. Don't ask me how, 'cuz I didn't ask. He's set up shop there, turned these Golems into his personal slaves and army, and he's sitting safe and sound behind a Government lockdown preventing any other access, these ravenous Golems, and said environment. Furthermore, the Wolf is plotting total domination, just like any other evil virus. The Wolf has himself a Megabyte complex.
How do I know all this stuff, you ask? Because I've been there. The Wolf happened to kidnap a friend of mine. And rather than go to our local constabulary, which spends more time picking its ass and eating donuts than helping people, I and some buddies took it upon ourselves to save our friend's behind.
This was not, I admit, the smartest idea in the world. Brave? Perhaps. I saw one of those Golems face-to-face and nearly had my head taken off by one. And then I had to try to face down a pair of terrorists--the infamous Exley brothers, Rollo and Tomasi--before I found my friend and pulled his skinny little butt out of there. And before I could do that, I had to grapple with the Wolf himself.
And WHY did I have to do this? Because our Government--God save their corrupt little souls--was too damn lazy to do anything about the Wolf, the Exleys, or Cragis. They just thought to themselves, if the Wolf tries anything, we'll see him and shut his viral ass down. When the Exleys started to work for the Wolf, the Government thought, now we can keep an eye on them too!
Don't make me laugh.
About eight months ago, the Resonate System, where I live, was plagued by a little something called a Game Cube. Everybody's heard about the Game Cubes from the legends of pre-colonial days. Hell, the Heroes Enzo Matrix and AndrAIa lived in the Game Cubes for a year according to the stories.
Well, the Wolf was behind those as well. Seems he hacked around the Government's Anti-Game Protocol and decided to wreak havoc on the Resonate System. Myself and my friends were trapped inside one of said Game Cubes before we got out. The second one happened to delete the Wolf.
But the story doesn't end there. The Government, while it did get up off its bureaucratic ass and actually accomplish something meaningful by restoring the Anti-Game Protocol, did not bother to check for any traces of the Wolf. They didn't go back to Cragis and shut down his operation there. They didn't arrest the Exleys. They didn't seize all of the Wolf's assets. In short, they took care of one thing, and it wasn't enough.
Story of the Government, isn't it? One thing is done, but it's never enough. Because those fat, lazy, corrupt bureaucrats sit behind their perpetual excuses of "red tape," "budget cuts," "jurisdictional questions," "unpopular decisions," "pork barrel," and other familiar phrases and never never never never NEVER do anything!
Oh, and don't get me started about the local government. Our command.com, Al Mark, wouldn't know a problem if it leapt up his ass, chewed out of its chest, danced like Michigan J. Frog on his desk, and left a slime trail from here to Mars. Our Police Chief, Cal Hostan, is so goddamn lazy he doesn't even bother to shoo flies. If something appears to go wrong, he smiles condescendingly and tells you, "Now, you're imagining things. Nothing ever goes wrong here. This is the Resonate System, the safest system in the Metaverse. You're just delusional."
Makes you want to hit him, doesn't it?
Command.com Mark and Chief Hostan didn't even BLINK when, six months ago, I was kidnapped by the Exleys and given over to an insane "doctor" named Jander van der Waals. Van der Waals was working for the Wolf, who had stored his mind in Government computers for later restoration. Van der Waals kidnapped a hacker to help the Wolf in this endeavor, and meanwhile, the "good doctor" experimented on me. After he was done pulling me almost apart, he turned me over to the Exleys, who think that humans aren't fit to piss on. By the time my friends came to my rescue (again, the Government just yawned and asked for a tax-free donation before doing anything), I was left a paraplegic. Six months later, I still feel their fists pounding me.
Van der Waals, for all of our sakes, died. But, unfortunately for all of us, the Wolf was brought back due to that hacker, and the Exleys are still at large.
And the Government just rolls over and goes back to sleep.
He pushed his terminal back, and the keyboard and screen closed. Quinn turned his chair and skimmed over to the window. The Resonate System had another beautiful day--as always. When he'd first moved to the Metaverse, the perpetual calm weather was a nice thing to wake up to. Now it soured him. It smelled of stagnancy.
Quinn turned away from the window. He wasn't expecting any visitors today. Zilch and Niente were busy tuning their bikes and doing practice laps at the Tracks. Nil and Void would be either at school, or off cooking up some prank. Blank and Zip would be in school. David, Naught, and Nada were out-of-system on a business trip.
Quinn would have liked to come, if nothing else to meet the famous Orion, but Nada had gently told him his hoverchair was a bit of a liability when taking it through system checks.
He'd woken up today in this remote system where the Underground had set up shop for a while and, in the 'morning amnesia' that plagues everybody in the a.m. hours, had forgotten where he was. So he had gone to find his closet and promptly walked into a wall.
Then there was Quinn's column. He'd picked up a copy of the Global Report, found Quinn's column, and read it. It wasn't that it was bad ("Lord knows, I agree with most of what Quinn said,") it was the tone. Quinn had forgotten one of the basic rules about politicians: they seem dumb, but when somebody comes right out and says 'throw the bum out,' they can have the temperment of a "rabid rhino," to use Quinn's words. David suspected that Al Mark and Cal Hostan were likely to call on Quinn in the coming days.
Nada joined him. Her typical red and gray outfit seemed a bit soiled, but perhaps it was just David's sunglasses. He needed to clean them.
"Hi, Nada," he said. "You seen Quinn's column today?"
"Have I seen it?" she repeated. "Ach. Yes, I've seen it. Naught was having trouble seeing this morning, so I read it to him. He wasn't too happy with it."
"Yeah, me neither." David got up. "Did you say Naught's having problems?"
Nada sighed again. She looked strained. "He's been having problems for the last six months, ever since...." She trailed off. She didn't need to finish; they both knew what happened then.
David walked past her into the bedroom. Naught was on the bed. His eyes were open, but they were glassy and weren't focusing on anything. When David entered, Naught turned his head to face him. "Nada?" he asked, his voice a hoarse croak.
"No, it's me."
"D. Hey man." Naught smiled. He sat up with a groan, clutching his side with his left hand.
"Ribs again?" David asked.
"Seems that way," the sprite replied. "Damn nanites."
"Tough break, buddy," David said sincerely.
"Don't remind me," Naught said. He stood up, his left leg twitching a bit. "So does Orion wanna see us now?"
"In a few," David told him, "but Nada thought you might want some breakfast."
Naught chuckled. "That'd be good. Too bad I'll probably miss my mouth."
"Nanites in the optical nerves now, huh?" David asked.
"Looks--" Naught corrected himself: "Seems that way."
David helped guide Naught out of the room and to a table where Nada had placed some bowls of cereal. David grimaced-he disliked cold cereal-but shrugged and decided to grin and bear it. He pulled out a chair for Naught, then helped push it closer after he'd sat down.
The purpose for this trip was to talk with Orion about the problem of Lean Il Lupe. In the past six months, the virus had been relatively quiet. Following Dr. Jander van der Waals' rampage there, Lean was going to be hard pressed to repair everything before he tried anything illegal out of Omega-Cragis. The Hacker Underground was supposed to be dedicated toward helping the less fortunate, and Lean had subjugated an entire species.
With any luck, Orion might agree, and they could use the coordinates for Omega-Cragis stored in their portal generator to get inside. Then, all they really had to do was find a way to neutralize Lean and convince the Golems that Lean wasn't out for their best interests.
Quinn looked up. It was a weekday. The twins and the kids should be in school, and Zilch and Niente were running errands. Who could it be? He switched off the Tri-V and skimmed over to the door. It sounded again.
"Yeah, yeah, just a sec!" Quinn hollered as he deactivated the locks. He slapped the opening mechanism.
Two uniformed policemen stood there. Quinn peered up at them, then tapped a control on his chair. He hovered up enough to look them eye-to-eye. They peered back. Quinn peered some more. They continued on for a moment before Quinn snapped, "Is there a problem, officers?"
"The Chief would like to talk to you," the one on the left said. He was a red-skinned sprite.
"So would the dot-com," the one on the right said. He was a yellow-skinned sprite. 'Dot-com' was jargon for 'command.com.'
Quinn smirked, but did not smile. "Really, now? And why should I take time out of my busy schedule to talk to them?"
Red didn't say anything. He just held up a datapad that flashed a credential of some kind. "That's a little warrant that allows us to bring you. The Chief is not happy with your article for today."
Quinn laughed once, but still did not smile. "I imagine he isn't. Give me a minute to take care of something, and then I'll come along."
"Now, sir," Yellow said.
"Nuh-uh," Quinn said. "I'm not going without letting a friend know. Just in case 'the Chief' wants you to do something else to me on the way back." He slipped out his comm as he skimmed over to his terminal. Niente answered.
"Yeah?"
"Niente, it's Quinn. Listen, it looks like Police Chief Hostan and Dot-Com Mark want to talk to me. I'll probably be a few hours."
"Right. If you don't call me back by, say, 1600 hours, I'll come ready to lay in a beatdown."
"Right. Thanks, Niente," Quinn said as he pulled a disk out of his terminal and disconnected portable terminal. He stored them in a compartment on his chair and skimmed back to the cops. "All right. Take me to your leader," he smirked. It still wasn't a smile.
Cal Hostan smiled in the same condescending way as Quinn had described in his column. But before the Chief could say anything, Quinn said, "There's that smile again."
Hostan's smile instantly faded. "Mr. Rentack," he said by way of greeting.
"Mr. Hostan," Quinn responded. He nodded to Al Mark. "Mr. Mark."
"Quinn," Mark said. The Dot-Com was always informal.
They stood there looking at each other for a moment, not saying anything, before Quinn rolled his eyes and said, "Look, you guys called me here. Start talking."
"We were going to give you a moment to apologize," Hostan said.
"Apologize?!" Quinn thundered. "Why in Heaven's name would I apologize to you?!"
Mark blinked. "Quinn, please. There's no need to shout."
"I'll shout if I damn well want to!"
"All we're asking," Hostan said in that condescending voice, "is that you retract your column. Take back what you said about us."
"I'll take back what I said," Quinn said, his voice dripping with venom, "when the Web freezes over."
"Why are you so hostile to us, anyway?" Mark asked.
"WHY?!" Quinn roared. "Look at me! I'm a paraplegic! Thanks to you bureaucrats and your we're-the-safest-system-on-the-Net attitude, I was kidnapped by a freakin' psycho and experimented on! You guys never did anything to help!"
Mark and Hostan didn't say anything. Quinn rolled his eyes again. "Christ, no wonder I was kidnapped! The Resonate's run by a bunch of spineless bureaucrats!"
And now, just as David had predicted, the bureaucrats began to fight back.
It was Lean Il Lupe and Rollo and Tomasi Exley, but they were in disguise as Andrew Ginole, Jaremy Draco, and Derik Salunsen. The Exleys wore loose clothing to hide their muscles. Lean looked only vaguely like his true form, so he was not likely to attract attention.
Ginole blinked and turned in a circle. "Well, well, well. The Resonate System." Even his voice sounded different.
Draco blinked. "So what do we do, boss?" Alas, Rollo was too stupid to change his.
Salunsen smacked him. "We find ou' what th' doc was up to, ya ijit!" Tomasi, on the other hand, had perfected a Texan drawl that totally masked his voice.
Ginole nodded. "Right." He called up a map of the Resonate on a vid-window. "Let's see. The closest place of interest is the Sound Archives. We'll start there."
Nil cackled. Void chortled. They had come up with a new prank. It was a variation of the sneak-up-and-scare-the-living-daylights-out-of-somebody gag. This one used a really loud sound file as the gimmick. Void had come up with the gag, and now Nil was just getting the gimmick.
"This is gonna be large!" Nil chuckled.
"Yeah," Void agreed. Then he pointed. "That one! The one called 'blare.wav'. That'll be perfect!"
Nil nodded, tapping a key on the terminal. "I'll pump it into my goggles' speakers. Just tone it down a bit." He put a hand to his ear, then actually winced. "Yee-owch! That thing's loud even when it's quiet!"
Void laughed. "Then it's perfect!" He hit the 'purchase copy' button, then slid a debit card through the indicated slot. A few moments later, the sound file popped out of a slot on the wall. The file looked like a simple micro-recorder. Void grinned. "Now, to find the proper victim."
Nil grinned, turning from the terminal, then stopped. He leaned forward, tapping his goggles, then looking even more ashen than his dark gray skin would allow. "Dude," he said in a hoarse whisper, "is that who I think it is over there by the entrance?"
Void turned, and turned as ashen as his twin brother. There were three sprites over by the entrance, asking something of passing tourists. One of them wore a black outfit and had pale skin. The other two were so big, there were only two people they could be. "If you think it's Andrew Ginole with Rollo and Tomasi in some really bad disguises, I think you're right."
"Zish."
Nil, without even thinking, had slipped out his comm. He thumbed the private line, then waited. Zilch answered.
"Yo."
"Bro, it's Nil. I'm over at the Archives. Guess who I see?"
"The Dark Sentinel?"
"No, someone real!"
"The Sentinel's real."
"Dude!"
"Sorry."
"It's Lean. He's here decked out like Andrew Ginole again, and the Exleys are with him."
"Aw, basic."
"Yeah. Zish, man, you gotta get over here."
"Yeah, I'll be right there, hey?"
Zilch clicked off his comm, and Nil put his away. He tapped Void. They didn't need to speak. They both crept back into the terminal booth and pulled the blind shut. They peered around to keep their eyes on the virus and his cohorts.
"What the deuce are they doing here?" Void muttered.
"I dunno, but it's not gonna be for anyone's health, that's for sure."
"Pardon me, sir, but can you--" Ginole's voice trailed off as he saw who was approaching.
"Ginole." Zilch was frowning. Draco and Salunsen moved in from the sides, their knuckles whitening. Zilch peered at them, then looked back at Ginole. "Call 'em off."
"No," Ginole said, putting the holo away. "Boys, pound him."
Draco and Salunsen moved for Zilch. Zilch sidled back, then sidestepped Draco and drove his elbow into the back of his head. Then he leaned away from Salunsen's punch and grabbed the arm. He pivoted, placing his other hand on the arm to steady his grip as he heard the bigger sprite's arm pop out of its socket. He then shoved him into the wall, kicked him in the backs of the knees, and tossed him to the ground. Zilch jumped over them and went for Ginole.
Ginole reverted to his regular bitmap. Lean raised his cane and fired a lightning bolt. Zilch plastered himself against the wall to avoid the shot as he leapt off the wall at the virus. Lean hovered back. Zilch looked back at Rollo and Tomasi, who were getting back up. Rollo was rubbing his head, where Zilch had struck him. Tomasi got up, gripped his shoulder, and swung his limp arm around to pop back into place.
Zilch dashed past them, ducking under Tomasi's swing and popping Rollo in the knee with a vicious jab, and jumped on his bike. It instantly came out of sleep mode and roared to life. Lean hovered up further and moved away. Zilch gunned his engines and flew after him. Rollo and Tomasi followed as fast as they could on foot.
"Heeeey, Lean! Yoou're gonna die, hey?!" Zilch screamed at him, bringing his bike's cannon online and taking aim at the fleeing virus.
And then the first bomb went off.
As Zilch watched Lean, he was unaware of the debris that fell and struck him in the back, damaging his bike and sending him crashing to the ground. He struck with a flare of pain, but he knew nothing was seriously injured-thank the Maker for small favors. His legs were pinned. About two meters away, Lean was pinned by the chest, and Rollo and Tomasi appeared to have been blocked by a large pile of rubble that filled the street and stood six or seven meters tall. On the sides were the still crumbling facades of other buildings.
They were trapped.
"You couldn't throw your back out, much less throw me in jail!" Quinn screamed back.
"Both of you shut up!" Mark hollered. They quieted, but still stared daggers at each other. Mark scowled at Quinn. "Look, you know what you said about us isn't true."
"The hell it isn't!" Quinn replied. "I know what I see. The Resonate System Council takes even longer than the World Council. Terrorists like the Exley brothers can come and leave at will, and you don't give a flyin' f--"
"Wait," Mark interrupted. "Did you hear something?" He turned to the windows and turned off their opacity. All three of them were speechless as they saw a building down in Sector Avi explode and topple like a domino.
"By All That's Sweet and Good," Hostan whispered.
The other bombs went off.
A second explosion ripped through the Industrial Sector. A third tore up Sector D-Nine. Then the park area, and finally, one touched off just west of the Principal Office.
The P.O. rocked like a ship in a stormy sea. Quinn's chair, which was hovering near the floor, bucked. Quinn felt his brace detach and he fell sprawling to the rocking floor. Hostan gave a yell as he fell against the cracking wall, and Mark was driven against the wall by his desk, which slid to pin his legs.
The ceiling began to crack and pieces of masonry fell across the room. Quinn blacked out as one such piece hit him in the head.
The shockwave hit first, causing the walls to buckle. Then, the sheer sound of the explosion caused the walls of the Archives to cave inward. A piece of the ceiling fell against the terminal booths.
Nil and Void looked at each other briefly, then began to pound on the debris, hollering at the top of their lungs.
He ripped his headphones off and upped the volume.
"We repeat, there has been a report of numerous explosions in the Resonate System. Reports are still sketchy, and we cannot verify them as yet. But reportedly, a series of large explosions hit the Resonate System less than half an hour ago. No confirmation on this as yet."
The newsman on the transmission began to repeat the broadcast, but Naught had already dropped the set. All three of the hackers were piling into Naught's car (Nada driving) and were fast through a portal back to the Resonate.
The sight that greeted them made their hearts break.