The Deadliest Game nfe-2 Read online

  “Working.”

  Her own area didn’t go away, but went shadowy while the Sarxos logo and copyright notices displayed themselves burning in the air before her as usual, and her scores and last-play times came up. “Resume from previous extraction point?” said the computer. “Or start new area play?”

  “Another alternative.”

  “State it, please.”

  “Do you recognize this token?” She picked up Rodrigues’s golden sigil, tossing it in her hand.

  “Concessionary token recognized. How can I help you?”

  Down the same old tunnel, Megan thought, resigned. “Identify attempted chat connections to my account from 1830 local last night to 0515 today.”

  A moment’s silence. “No connections from within Sarxos.”

  “Okay.” J. Simpson. She shook her head. “Any e-mail waiting?”

  “No e-mail.”

  So Wayland had come up with nothing new. “I want access to server logs,” Megan said.

  “That access is allowed with your token. Which logs would you like to see?”

  “Logs for players Rutin, Walse, Hunsal, Orieta, Balk the Screw, and Lateran.”

  “Specify mode. Audio? Text? Graphical?”

  “Graphics, please,” Megan said. Her eyes weren’t up to reading much text at the moment.

  “What span of time?”

  “The last—” Megan waved her hand, not really caring. “Four months.”

  “Working.”

  Six separate bar graphs stacked themselves up in the air in front of Megan, looking something like a long detailing of what the Dow Jones index might have been doing for the last quarter. Each upright bar was a twenty-four-hour period; in it, as a series of bright vertical dashes stitched down the darker “bar,” was a representation of the number of hours that the person in question had been in Sarxos playing.

  The six players were serious ones. Not one of them seemed to have played less than four hours a day, for all four months. Some of them had played six, or eight, routinely. Some of them had repeated stretches, especially at weekends or around holidays, when they were in the game for fourteen hours a day, or more. I wonder where they’ve been getting their massage programs from, Megan thought, stretching her aching body. Jeez, I thought I was fairly serious about the game. But these people are obsessed.

  For amusement, she said to the computer, “Put up the matching server log for Brown Meg.”

  It came up. She breathed out a rueful laugh. Over the last few days, her usage, staggered as it was, had become almost as obsessive as theirs. Dad’s gonna have words with me, she thought. And as for Mom…no, let’s not even think about it right now.

  “Display matching server usage for Leif Hedge-wizard,” Megan said. Another bar graph appeared below hers. His usage looked a lot like hers, for the past few days. He’s no better.

  And there was the tunnel, still with no cheese in it. She made a face at herself, and said, “Oh, go on, display server usage for Lateran.”

  It came up. Lateran was as bad as any of them. Worse. Another mad one, in and out constantly. “Display usage for Argath.”

  Argath, strangely, wasn’t in as much as Megan would have thought. His usage over the past several months actually looked more like her usual pattern, though it had been busier than usual the past few days. It didn’t seem normal, somehow…but then, what was normal usage for a Sarxos player? Was there any such thing? Probably not.

  Megan raised her eyebrows at the thought, and said to the computer, “Display usage pattern for — oh, Wayland—”

  His pattern came up under Argath’s. Megan sipped at her tea again, which she had “brought” into the virtual space with her, and sat gazing a little blearily at all the bar graphs hanging there glowing in the air in front of her. I should go out and do the cold-washcloth trick again, she thought, blinking.

  And then she stopped, and looked at the graphs again: not the way she normally would have, but with her eyes squinted shut a little bit, as they had been before.

  Lateran’s graph looked a lot like Wayland’s.

  In the general patterning, the way the dashes and blank spaces fell…there were a lot more dashes, times “in,” than there were empty spaces. Lateran’s graph made Megan wonder a little more as she looked at each twenty-four-hour period and realized how much of it was taken up by gameplay. Most of it. A whole lot of it. And if you compared the end of one day with the beginning of the next — as often as not, they ran right into one another. Well, midnight. Peak game time, after all.

  But that wasn’t it. Twelve-hour stretches. Fourteen, sixteen sometimes. The pattern repeated, cycling backward very slowly through the four-month period. Six hours in, twenty minutes out. Eight hours in, one hour out. Two hours in, an hour out. Five hours in—

  The pattern definitely repeated. And Lateran’s timings were beyond “obsessed.” They were positively pathological. When does he sleep? Megan wondered. More to the point, when does he work? Even if you worked at home, you’d have a hard time keeping up a schedule like this. Without getting fired, anyway…

  “Computer.”

  “Listening.”

  “User profile on player Lateran.”

  “Your concessionary token does not allow that access. Please consult with Chris Rodrigues for further information.”

  “What time is it for Chris Rodrigues?” Megan said.

  “0242.”

  He’s on the West Coast somewhere. I’m not going to wake him up at quarter of three in the morning. Unless… “Is Chris in the game at the moment?”

  “No.”

  I’ll have to wait. She looked again at Lateran’s server log. If this person has a job, it has to be done at home. But even if it is, it can’t be more than part-time…not with this kind of usage. And it’s not a child. Sarxos’s age limit, because of the violence, was sixteen and up. So Lateran has to either be in school or some kind of work…. She shook her head. The usage didn’t make sense.

  And Megan looked down at Wayland’s usage. It really was very much like Lateran’s. Six hours on, two hours off…eight hours on, two hours off…seven hours on…And the pattern repeated, and cycled slowly backward through the four-month period. They’re a little out of synch. Not exactly alike, but… She shook her head.

  But the strange way that Wayland had sounded this morning was still on Megan’s mind. A very peculiar suspicion began to grow in her. It was impossible, of course, because Wayland’s server log and Lateran’s server log showed them as often being on line at the same time…and you couldn’t play two characters at once.

  Could you?

  “Computer,” Megan said.

  “Listening.”

  “Maximum number of characters played by any one Sarxos user.”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “What’s the user’s name?”

  “That information is not available to you with your present concessionary token. Please consult Chris Rodrigues for further information.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Access the records of player Lateran.”

  “Records accessed: holding in store.”

  “How many other characters does the person playing Lateran play?”

  “Five.”

  “Is one of them ‘Wayland’?”

  Silence for a moment, then: “Yes.”

  Megan flushed hot and then cold with the confirmation. “Listen,” she said, as a whole group of horrible possibilities started opening up in front of her. Now her job was to start limiting them. “With this token, can I access Chris Rodrigues’s file of attempted and successful bounces on Sarxos players?”

  “That access is allowed.”

  “Access the file, please, and hold it in store.”

  “Done.”

  “Display the bounce periods on a similar bar graph. Star each one.”

  The computer did so. Each bright star of a bounce “timing” was superimposed on a dark translucent bar corresponding to the graphs above.

  “Pull d
own the graphs for Lateran and Wayland. Superimpose them on the ‘bounce’ chart.”

  Obediently, the computer did so. All the bounces, including the latest one with Elblai, fell inside time periods when both Wayland and Lateran were reported to be in the game.

  But it’s impossible, Megan thought, horror and triumph beginning to rise in her together. It’s impossible. Both those logs for Wayland and Lateran can’t be true. They can’t both be there at once. But if one of them was—

  “Computer!”

  “Listening.”

  “Is it possible for a player to play two characters at once during the same game period?”

  “Only sequentially. Simultaneous play of multiple characters has been ruled out by the designer and is illegal in the system.”

  They’re the same player. They’re both there at the same time. They can’t be. And the computer hasn’t noticed, because it’s not trained to notice.

  Someone’s found a way to fake being in the system.

  “It’s too important,” she whispered. “Computer, I need to talk to Chris Rodrigues right now. This is an emergency.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and the computer said, “Chris is not answering his page. Please try again later.”

  “This is an emergency,” Megan said. “Don’t you understand me?”

  “The system understands ‘emergency,’” the computer said, “but has no authority from a concessionary token of the type presently in your possession to contact him at this time. Please try again later.”

  It’s him, she thought. The bouncer. It’s him.

  Oh, shit…!

  “Do you wish to leave a message for Chris Rodrigues?”

  Megan opened her mouth, then shut it again as another thought occurred. “No,” she said.

  “What other services do you require?”

  Megan sat there looking at all those bar graphs. “Show me the other server logs,” she said, “the same period, for all the other characters played by the player who plays Wayland and Lateran.”

  “Working.” Three more graphs appeared. The first and the third very closely matched the patterns of Wayland’s and Lateran’s. There were some minor differences in the timing, and the patterns were slightly more elaborate, but again, these characters spent too much time in the system to be realistic, and again, they cycled slowly backwards over the four-month period. Automatic, Megan thought. No question of it.

  The middle usage-graph looked more real. Three hours in, twenty hours out. Four hours in, thirty-five hours out…a more scanty usage pattern. Not a dillie, but not obsessed either.

  Megan let her eyes go unfocused again, a good way to make sure you were seeing the pattern you thought you were. The similarities were too strong among all the questionable graphs to possibly be a coincidence.

  “Store display,” Megan said.

  “File name?”

  “Megan-and-Leif-One. Can I copy this display to e-mail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Copy to player Leif Hedge-wizard.”

  “Done. Holding for pickup.”

  “Copy it to him out of the system as well.”

  “Message dispatched to the Net at 0554 local.”

  Now what do I do?

  Megan swallowed, had to do it again. Her mouth was dry. Lateran. We were right. I know we were right. The new up-and-coming young general… She smiled a little grimly. Something of an analyst. And something of a danger, to judge by this. Anyone who could invent a way to fool a virtual-reality system into thinking they were there when they weren’t…

  More to the point, Megan thought, why would they waste the technique in here? It’s only a game. True, there were people who felt that Sarxos was a life-or-death matter, who spent almost all their waking hours in it, who lived it and slept it and ate it and drank it and, as Chris said, wanted to move in. But this, though…Megan shook her head. This is someone willing to use, or possibly invent, a technology whose whole purpose is to exploit the basic issue of presence in a virtual environment.

  She had always believed that the “fingerprint” you left in the Net by your presence with an implant attached was indelible and uncounterfeitable. It was one of the truisms on which safe use of the Net was built: that you were who your implant said you were, that you were where you claimed to be, when you claimed to be. The implant hooked to your own physicality supposedly made authentification of your actions in the Net final and certain. But somebody — Wayland? Lateran? Whoever this person really was had found a way to be “there” when they weren’t there. While their genuine physicality was somewhere else, doing something else. Breaking into someone’s house and smashing their computer…running a middle-aged grandmother off the road and into a pole.

  What next?

  And all for the sake of a game.

  Or was that all it was? For the implications of such a technology were horrific.

  Megan shuddered, swallowed again, her mouth still dry. There’s still no proof. This is still circumstantial evidence.

  But it’s real good circumstantial evidence, and it’s gonna raise a lot of questions.

  Now what?

  To the computer, she said, “Store the graphs…remove them from my workspace. Copy the file to James Winters at Net Force.”

  “Done.”

  Megan sat and looked at Saturn out the window.

  He’ll know, of course. We told him to his face, what we were investigating, what our suspicions were. Even about Lateran. He knows we’re onto him.

  It’s not Fettick and Morn we should be worried about. It’s us.

  And it’s not like we’re that hard to find either. Megan thought. Schedules that we don’t vary. Known addresses. She smiled a wry smile.

  I need to get hold of Winters right now. But—

  And then she stopped.

  What was in her mind was the image of Wayland, Lateran, whoever ran him — coming here, coming after her. Or coming after Leif. It was all too easy to get addresses and phone numbers and all kinds of “personal” information off the Net. But at the same time—

  Why do I need to worry? Megan thought, her mouth starting to undry itself a little. We’ve got the standard number of defensive firearms here, and I know how to use them all. Someone comes up to me in the street, or tries to get physical with me—She smiled grimly. No, I think I’d like to hand this one — we’d like to hand this one — to Winters, on a plate….

  Well, I can’t do that. Gotta go by the book. But that doesn’t mean I should just sit here waiting for it to happen, for Wayland to come after me….

  She looked again thoughtfully at those attempted chat contacts. J. Simpson, she thought. Where are you, J. Simpson?

  “Sarxos computer,” she said. “Thank you. Log out.”

  “You’re welcome, Brown Meg. Enjoy your day.” The copyright notice came and went in a flash of crimson.

  “Computer,” Megan said. “Access e-mail address for J. Simpson. Open new mail….”

  And she smiled.

  Leif popped into his stave-house workspace and sat down on the Danish Modern couch, rubbing his eyes. “Mail?” he said to his computer.

  “Loads of it, oh, my lord and master. How do you want it? Important first? Dull first? In order of receipt?”

  “Yeah, the last,” Leif said, and rubbed his eyes again. He felt deathly tired.

  He had thought he would sleep like a log (however logs slept) when he got out of Sarxos last night. But instead he’d tossed, and turned, and hadn’t been able to get settled. Something was bothering him, something he couldn’t identify, something he’d missed.

  Not Lateran. Sukin syn, it’s not Lateran. He couldn’t get rid of the thought. And he was thinking about Wayland, too. What Megan had been saying. “A ‘canned’ quality…”

  An e-mail about some event his mother wanted him to attend was playing. “Look,” he said to the machine, “put it all on hold for a moment.”

  “Okay.”

  Leif thought back to o
ther encounters he had had with Wayland, right back to the very first ones he’d had with him. The man had seemed a little eccentric…but you got that with people in Sarxos, sometimes. The more Leif thought about those conversations, though, the more what Megan had said began to ring true. And a player could play back his own experiences, if he’d thought to save them.

  Leif smiled grimly. He was something of a packrat, and tended to archive everything, until his father started complaining that there was no room left in the machine for business. “Listen,” Leif said, “get my Sarxos archives.”

  “Their machine’s on the line, Boss,” said his own computer, “and the things it’s saying about you, I wouldn’t want to repeat. The storage space you use—!”

  “Yeah, I pay for it. Never mind. Listen, I want to hear all the conversations I’ve had with the character ‘Wayland.’”

  “Right you are.”

  He started listening. By the third conversation, he had already begun to pick up repetitions of phrases. Not just because they were familiar — but because they were spoken in exactly the same intonation every time. The hair began to rise on the back of his neck. Another phrase: “Now that is very interesting.” Repeated again, a couple of months later: “Now that is very interesting.” The very same intonation. And a third time: perfect, the same timing, to the second.

  But then…he played the record of his and Megan’s conversation with Wayland. “Now that is very interesting.”

  A different intonation. Much more amused…and definitely more aware.

  He swallowed, and looked up at something vibrating just off to one side. It was one of the pieces of e-mail…and it had Megan’s address on it.

  “Dammit. Open that!” he said to the computer.

  It did. Leif found himself looking at a series of stacked bar graphs. They were people’s server logs, compared by time. They were—

  His mouth fell open as he looked at the last logs at the bottom of the stack: two sets, superimposed over one another, and the stars, which marked the timings of all the bounces there had been in the last few months, laid over them.

  Leif’s throat seized. He couldn’t even swear. There were no words bad enough for what he saw there.

  We were right. It was Lateran.

  And Lateran is Wayland, too. And Wayland is “canned,” somehow. We’ve been hearing preprogrammed phrases….