The Lag (The Game Master: Book #1) (15 page)

Attila sent a quick message to a friend. "Looks like it's gone through," he said. "But all the online status icons are amber:
away
."

"It's nighttime," Healer said. "Everybody's asleep. Try to contact another player."

Attila looked around the table at the company present and shrugged. "I don't have friends here."

"No friends at all?" Healer turned to Beast and Yanna. "And how about you?"

"I have the latest upgrade installed," Yanna sighed. "It doesn't support the chat."

Beast cringed. "I have, too."

Healer walked over to the trapdoor and stared down at it with his back to the others. Silence fell. Outside, the wolves pattered around. The wind whistled in the chimney. The expectant atmosphere was broken by Wayfarer who spoke,

"The chat can wait. I want you to listen closely. On Floor 15 of the RussoVirt building, there's a utility room. Inside, there's an old Siemens laptop. To get to the room, you need to take Corridor 2B in the West Wing. Turn right at the elevators. After two more turns, you'll see three doors. The farthest of the three will take you to the utility room. To locate the laptop, you need to move the washbasin table away from the wall. The laptop is taped to the back of the table. You think you can remember that?" He turned to Yanna. "Can you repeat it, please? This is very important."

Healer had already turned back to them and was eyeing Wayfarer with amazement.

"RussoVirt building," Yanna repeated the directions word by word. "But that's in Moscow, isn't it? And I live in St. Petersburg."

"Listen up. Open the laptop. Locate a large executable file titled Poison. It's a virus. We wrote it, er, some time ago. This is a very special kind of virus. It targets Alpha. It's a bit like a poison pill. It's not going to kill Alpha himself, only certain modules responsible for his self-awareness. You must take the laptop and-"

Healer eyed Wayfarer with suspicion. "How do you know all this? Who told you that? Why should I believe you?"

Wayfarer ignored him. "I repeat. Corridor 2B, to the right from the elevators, then turn twice. You'll go past the chief programmer's office — that's your office, Rob, it's easy to recognize because of that stupid glass wall Bagrov had introduced as the latest touch in office design. At the end of the corridor, you'll see three doors: the switchboard room, the cleaners' storeroom and this last one. They didn't know what to use it for. Initially, it was supposed to be a restroom but the builders had forgotten to lay the pipework. So the cleaners started using it to store all sorts of junk. Am I right?"

Healer nodded. "You are indeed. There's a problem, though. No one has access to this kind of information apart from the corporate workers. Who are you?"

"We need to upload the virus. How can we do that?"

Healer slumped onto a stool. "Via broadband. We use it in cases you need to introduce large-scale changes to the engine without shutting down the game. If you can indeed restart the main portal, I'll exit the game, get to the laptop and activate the virus. But someone will have to stay here in order to switch off the firewall."

"What kind of firewall?" Beast asked.

Wayfarer shook his head. He didn't seem to have expected this.

Healer made a helpless gesture. "When it all started, we tried different methods of controlling Alpha. None of them worked. Alpha had installed his own firewall which we called the Guard. Alpha uses it as his own communication channel with the rest of the world — or rather, with the Internet. He'd known we were going to do that! So he decided to play safe."

"So how do you disable it?" Attila asked.

"That's the whole thing. You can't do it in the real world. The only way to disable it is from within the game. You need to understand: Alpha is much more than just a very complex program code. He
is
the game. He is Gryad. Every little change he makes to himself affects everything that's happening here. That is to say, his every action was responsible for certain changes here in the Canyon. Visible changes, something that players can see and feel. And as for his firewall, a. k. a. the Guard... do you know how the Canyon came about?"

Yanna shrugged. "Everybody knows that. It's in the intro video, isn't it? Everyone's seen it at least once. The Seven great Wizards, the Conclave, the Great Portal, the catacomb monsters and the first Storm..."

"The video doesn't say anything about the Wizards' fate."

"Aren't they still in the Citadel?" Attila suggested.

Healer nodded. "They are. The magosphere has become this world's blessing and its undoing. It helped the Wizards to save Gryad from destruction. But they failed to close the Portal. Now all they can do is strain to stabilize it. Otherwise the energy of the magosphere will pour into Gryad through it like a burst dam, tearing reality to pieces. Some of the Wizards' servants were turned into clerics during the first Storm. They formed the Silent Brotherhood. Their purpose is to guard the Citadel. As for the Wizards themselves, they've spent the last few years lying motionless in one of the Castle halls, hovering between existence and oblivion. In actual fact, the Great Portal is a broadband connection. At the time, it seemed like an elegant solution — ironic even."

"Which means," Attila spoke, "that whoever wants to introduce the virus, first needs to get into the Citadel and deactivate the firewall?"

"Alpha's identity manifests itself as the Wizards of the Conclave," Healer added.

"Oh," Beast tugged at his beard. "That's a job and a half."

A blind wolf howled. Another one growled at him. Healer raised his head warily and listened. Then he jumped up, grabbed his staff and hurried outside.

When the door had closed behind him, Attila said to no one in particular, "How long do you think he can keep this part of the Canyon under his control?"

Wayfarer stirred on the bench. But before he could answer, Healer rushed inside and bolted the door behind him. The wolves growled and scratched at the wall. Pressing his hand to his forehead, Healer closed his eyes, as if concentrating.

"That's the end of my defenses," he said. "The interface has crashed. I can't restore it. This is Alpha's doing. I've lost control. The wolves have just attacked me."

He stepped toward the trapdoor. "We'd better get down into the cellar."

Wayfarer pulled his Book out of the bag. "It's time to decide who does what. One of us will have to quit the game and upload the virus while the rest-"

Suddenly Attila understood Wayfarer's interest in them. He needed players who could go back to real life and get to the laptop. But why couldn't he do it himself?

"How about you ask us first?" Yanna said. "Why are you so sure we're going to get involved?"

"Healer's obliged to help us quit the game," Beast agreed. "It's his job. But stealing a laptop from his office... sounds like trouble. People get jailed for less."

Healer crouched over the trapdoor, forcing it aside. He leaned over the opening and looked down. A pale muddy-yellow light escaped from below.

"I'm going to give you a bank account number and a login for you to check its balance," Wayfarer said. "There're seventy thousand gold on the account. It's a lot of money. You can use it to open your own business, a design agency or a gaming outfit. It's up to you. Now you need to decide who is going to quit the game and who is going to come with me to the Citadel. I can't do it on my own."

Seventy thousand!

Beast tugged at his beard with both hands. One of Yanna's pointy ears twitched. Attila didn't say anything. He was dying to know who Wayfarer was. Or why Alpha had locked all the players up in the game. What if Attila never made it out? He was going to be a fine sight for his air hostess auntie's eyes! A decomposed body in her lounge swaddled in a high tech suit.

Did Yanna have someone at home who could disconnect her? And would it even help? Or could it be that no amount of disconnection could reclaim a mind caught in Alpha's gaming web, leaving the body to vegetate in its suit, devoid of consciousness and will, capable only of basic functions like breathing?

The ogre's voice thundered outside. The blind wolves howled. The mobs were now crossing the quagmire — and seeing as they were one with the marshes, they weren't going to drown. Soon they'd be here, to attack them
en masse
and wipe Healer's hut of the face of the Canyon.

Glancing at the door, Healer walked over to the hut's only window, slammed the shutters close and barred them. He walked back to the trapdoor and jumped down. Knowing that any delay was rapidly decreasing their chances of success, Attila spoke,

"Let's do it this way. I live next door to the RussoVirt building. You can see it from my window. If I manage to quit the game, I can get to the building in minutes. I'm not saying this because I want to save my skin — although actually I do. But it's true that I live just a couple of blocks away."

Wayfarer looked at Yanna. She was pointing her bow at the door while sidestepping toward the trapdoor.

"I'd love to go too," she admitted. "My folks left for a week so I'm home alone. I wasn't planning to stay in game for longer than twenty-four hours. And it's nearly over already. I just wanna say, there's no one there to help me."

"Right. That much is clear," Wayfarer turned to the restless foot-shifting Beast. "You?"

A wolf growled outside. The door shuddered under a heavy blow. Beast backed off to the trapdoor.

"I can stay, if you wish," he muttered. "Did you say something about the money? I'm so fed up living with my parents, you won't believe it. If I could only get a place of my own, I'd do anything. But what about the password? You'll need it to get the money, right? And what if you, you know... what if you die?"

Wayfarer picked up his staff and stepped toward the trapdoor. "You'll get the password once you've uploaded the virus."

Another blow came straight through the door. The bar snapped. A window shutter collapsed to the floor, the other hung on one hinge. A ghoul shoved his head into the window. These Marshes had some truly enormous mobs! He'd never seen a monster like this before. He was at least twice as big as the one that lived by Gamekeeper's hut.

The ghoul craned his neck, looking in. The spikes that framed his mouth parted, revealing a powerful jaw. He grabbed at the window frame, forcing his way in.

Yanna loosed off an arrow. It hit the ghoul's head, making him shrink back.

"Come, quickly!" Healer shouted from below. Wayfarer and Beast jumped down and so did Attila. Yanna's bow sang again, then she followed them.

A shadow flashed overhead, forcing her to duck. "How d'you shut it? The trapdoor has no handle! It opens outwards!"

They stood in the center of a high-ceilinged cellar cut in stone. Four fat wooden idols with bulging eyes and round mouths towered in its corners. The chest of one of them glittered with flashing shapes. Was it some kind of screen?

Attila peered at the idol. Indeed, his wooden chest revealed running lines of script. A virtual keyboard glowed below. So that's what Healer must have meant by interface! But why were there four of them? Did it mean only one was functional and the rest were there for the sake of symmetry?

Beast and Attila stepped away from the trapdoor, peering into it. Without lowering her bow, Yanna backed toward the farthest idol. Healer was already busy with it, keying commands and entering codes. Every time he pressed a virtual button, the eyes of all four idols flickered. Wayfarer crouched next to him, busy with his Book. It had grown fine pulsating strands of magic energy that reached for the idol, sinking into the wood. Just like a gadget connected to a computer.

Without looking at them, Healer said, "We'll exit the game and you will have to go to the cellars of Deadville first. You must find a hidden object without which you won't be able to get inside the Citadel. I'll tell you later..."

Overhead, the hut's front door rattled off its hinges.

Healer turned to them. "Close the hatch!"

"How?" Yanna yelled back.

"Just pull the flippin' string!"

Attila peeked at the hatch. There was no string! All he could see was the thick oak lid.

Healer darted along the wall and reached for a thin length of string that hung from a rusty nail. At that moment, the ghoul reached his long arms inside the cellar, grabbing him and pulling him out. Healer screamed. His dangling legs disappeared up the trapway.

Yanna gasped. Cussing, Beast fired a fireball that volleyed through the trapway and hit the ceiling. The ghoul snarled. Screams and the sounds of breaking furniture came from above.

"We need him!" Beast screamed.

Wayfarer slid toward the trapway, pulling something out of his bag. Beast fired another fireball that hit a basilisk which tried to get into the cellar. Yanna followed up with a few arrows. All Attila could do was clutch his sword hilt harder. That's when he regretted not leveling distance weapons! He was nothing like Yanna: by the time he had strung his bow and taken aim... no, better wait for the enemy to come down and meet his sword.

The ghoul appeared in the opening. His spiky jaws, dripping with Healer's blood, parted like a carnivorous flower, revealing the dark throat.