by Dan Thomas
It was amazingly light, and he only had to use one arm to hold it steady.
His eyes lay on the button. With a glance around the empty, dimly lit tunnel for something else, Max reached out and pressed the button.
He felt a tingle sensation up his arm holding the chain before it was yanked out of his grip, the chain rattling through the hole in the wall as the floating rock rocketed its way upward.
He cringed at the sound of the thick chain clanging as it hit its maximum length, the metal handle stopping the end of the chain from being pulled through the hole in the wall.
Max gingerly tugged the chain. It didn’t budge the first few attempts. Max looked around himself again.
Had he trapped himself down there?
He grabbed the chain again and pulled, this time it gave way just as easily as before. Max let out his breath.
“It works on a timer.” Max turned away from the floating rock, now sure he was on the right path.
Thrusting his torch forward, he set off at a run, confident this tunnel wouldn’t be booby-trapped. If it was, he’d be a dead man, but he didn’t have time to take it slow, he’d wasted too much of the night exploring the decoy tunnel above.
There was nothing remarkable about the tunnel, other than the fact the walls were solid, and it ran straight as if the Romans had built it. Efficient, just like the rest of the Ravagers’ base. Max’s sneaking admiration for the Ravagers Crew was soon shut down when he reminded himself that the Ravagers were like a bunch of parasites that took what they wanted from other players and Crews and were funded by either sponsors with deep pockets or stealing from unsuspecting recruits. None of this had been built on the Crew’s own ingenuity.
Murf slowed as the torchlight seemed to bounce back at him. He was nearing the end of the tunnel.
Lowering the torch, he wiped the sweat from his forehead as he kept his pace slow and allowed his stamina to recover. The tunnel might have been clear so far but that was no indication of what lay ahead. Surely there was some kind of defense between the tunnel and the tower?
A door. Crap. This plan would be a bust if there was no way of opening the door leading into the command tower.
Murf dropped the torch to the ground as he reached the door. Made of a solid metal-like material similar to the vault door, it was built to withstand an attack from the tunnel. Sure, it wasn’t impregnable, but taking it down would require explosives or a large battering ram. Neither of which would work for this mission of stealth. Murf would just have to turn around and head back down the tunnel and tell his crew they would need explosives if they wanted to get into the base of the tower when they attacked.
Nothing said surprise like a loud explosion.
Murf ran his hands over the door, checking for any kind of opening mechanism or weakness, neither of which seemed to be present.
His elbow knocked into a stone on the wall that stuck out farther than the rest. “Ouch.” He cradled his elbow in his hand but then the numb pain in his elbow was forgotten. “You beauty.”
Max curbed his enthusiasm in case anyone on the other side of the door might hear him.
The stone he had hit had become dislodged. With a push, it popped off and swung away as if on a hinge. Beneath was a gray panel with nine blank silver buttons on it.
Max rubbed his chin. He knew that he should probably wait and talk to the others about what to do next, perhaps ask Chopsticks in all his genius if he knew how to code break as he’d likely only have a certain number of attempts to get this right.
But Max’s fingers itched at the idea of solving the puzzle there and then.
He gingerly reached out and pressed the middle button.
A buzzing tone sounded from the panel, and Max recoiled.
He held his breath, ready to sprint away if someone heard the noise and came to investigate.
After a minute of not hearing anything, Max stepped toward the door, placing his ear against it. He couldn’t hear any noise coming from the other side.
He turned back to the panel. The noise hadn’t been that loud, it had just spooked him in the echoey and otherwise silent tunnel.
Max shrugged and pressed another button, which let out another buzzing tone.
“Hm,” Max scratched his head, pressing a third button, and was rewarded with another, slightly higher-pitched buzz.
Maybe pressing the buttons changes the pitch of the sound, Max thought, his brain working to think of a possible solution. He could only guess that he had to move the sound to a certain pitch.
Stopping frequently to listen to the door, Max began pressing the buttons in various orders to see if he could tell what direction they took the pitch but quickly realized that the sound didn’t actually change, rather that each button emitted a different tone instead.
Max sighed with disappointment. He must have put in a few wrong combinations by now, with no alarm sounding, and so decided to push his luck. He was on a deadline anyway.
Despite knowing that his chances of brute-forcing the combination were slim, Max decided to take a chance, pressing a few of the buttons in random order.
He shook his head after a minute of this. There was no enter or reset button, he had no idea how many buttons needed to be pressed. Frustrated, he poked a last few of the buttons with a huff before pausing.
“Wait a minute…” He pressed the same buttons again.
The sound the buttons made was almost familiar. As he looked around the tunnel, only lit by his failing torch, he frantically tried to hold onto a memory of that sound in a similar place.
He pressed the buttons one more time, the buzzing making a kind of humming tune.
He snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”
Eagerly, Max pressed the three buttons in the same order, recognizing the short melody from the catchy tune that had been stuck in his head all week, the tune he’d heard some of the Ravagers humming.
Uttering a silent prayer that the Ravagers weren’t advanced enough or didn’t think it necessary to put in a limit on attempts, Max input the beginning of the tune, screwing up his face as he tried to remember how it went.
He hummed quietly to himself, trying to find the next note.
After a couple of attempts, Max managed to find the next couple of notes that he was fairly confident were correct.
The last one was the hardest, and Max had the order of the buttons memorized by the time he hit the right button, the tune of ten notes finally coming to its end.
He held his breath as the door clicked and sprang open an inch. If there was someone on the other side, he was in trouble and the whole plan would be exposed.
Leaning forward, he pressed his ear to the gap. There were no voices or footsteps racing toward the door. No one had noticed the door opening.
His hand trembled as he placed it flat on the smooth metal and pushed it open another inch. He paused again. There was a short corridor on the other side of the door that turned a few yards ahead. It was dim and quiet, but from the glow coming from around the wide corner, Max could tell that there was a light source.
He looked over his shoulder at his torch. Did he leave it burning or put it out?
“Come on, Striker, I don’t have all night.”
Max froze at the echoey voice. It sounded like Suzaro, but it was difficult to tell as the words warbled through the rock.
Max let the door close almost completely before he inched it open again, looking back into the empty corridor. If they were coming this way, then he needed to find somewhere to hide.
Max slipped out of the tunnel, his back flat against the wall as he crept forward.
“I’m coming.” Striker’s voice came to him, his frustration was clear as he spoke. “You know I had a hot date tonight?”
Max was pretty sure he heard Mamba laugh. “Sure.”
“You two are such bitches,” Striker snapped.
“Yeah, I know. But if it’s that girl you met in class, you don’t stand a chance,” Suzaro chuckled.
“What are we doing here anyway?” Striker obviously decided he was outclassed.
“I need something out of the vault, and since all this crap started and everyone’s grumpy, I want you to come with me so I can’t get accused of taking anything I shouldn’t,” Suzaro said.
Staying crouched, Max began to move down the wide corridor toward the voices.
“Things have gotten a bit weird around here lately, huh?” Striker admitted. “Do you think it’s because the Terra Trials are so close?”
Max crept farther along the corridor which took a gradual turn left. Max looked up at the high ceiling. There was definitely enough room for a big carnivore to fit down here.
Staying as close to the wall as possible, Max shuffled around the curve, stopping when he could just about see down the rest of the corridor, and into the area beneath the command tower that he had been caught in before.
Max could see the back of the Ravagers as they stood in front of the vault door across the large space from Max. The entrance to the base above ground must have been somewhere above him, as he was looking past the ramp up to the door.
Suzaro turned around, back to the imposing door with the security alarm. Max quickly shuffled back around the wall, praying the dim light helped him stay hidden. “It might be the tournament. Or it might just be that the guys are super on edge, with everything going on, you know?” She shook her head and then dropped her voice. “It’s cool having all this stuff and all, but sometimes I miss the days when things were simple.”
Striker burst out laughing. “I don’t. I don’t miss the days of grinding to mine iron ore, and stone for building. I’d much rather take it off some loser Crew. As for taming dinosaurs...boring.” He yawned.
“I’ll go grab what I need so you can get back to your fake hot date.” Max heard the vault door open. He looked back around the corner as the three stepped inside into the brightly lit room.
“It’s not fake,” Striker said tartly.
“Sure, it’s not,” Suzaro teased, their voices fading as they walked away.
Murf kept low as he darted from his cover, intending to be under the ramp. Looking out from under it, he scanned up toward the stairs and the top of the tower before glancing around at the rest of the underground area.
It seemed empty aside from the three Ravagers.
Taking a deep breath, he jogged across the space toward the vault, making sure he wasn’t directly in front of the entrance, rather aiming for the wall next to it.
With his heart thumping in his chest, Max flattened himself against the wall, shimmying across and quickly craning his neck to peek into the doorway before pulling back.
The three Ravagers were out of sight. Crouching down, he crept forward and took a proper look inside the vault, his eyes stinging from the bright lights.
“Fuck.” Max gazed at the warehouse-style rows of shelves, reaching overhead height, that filled the room.
Much like Indigo’s place, there was stuff inside from the different Terra Verse worlds. He could see staffs and wands, big tech guns, assault rifles, bombs, and what looked like robots or drones.
Max closed his jaw. The vault held a small fortune’s worth of items, not even factoring in the cost of bringing them across world. He could only assume that they funded the hoarding with the hack Jag had told him about and avoided the commission of cross-world travel with Concealers.
If the Coprolite Crew weren’t going to get wiped out in their attack on the Ravagers, they were going to have to make sure the gear stored in the vault was out of their reach.
Maybe permanently out of their reach.
The Ravagers were obviously secretive of the contents of their vault and were reluctant to use what they had, but Max was sure that they wouldn’t hesitate to pull out all the stops if they were pushed hard enough.
Max backed up, hiding behind the wall again as he tried to stop himself from hyperventilating.
They had to find a way to deal with the vault, and soon. Otherwise, the Coprolite Crew was screwed.
Chapter Fifty
“Lost your little friend?” Bullet57 came up behind Murf as he bent down to assess the damaged wall.
Murf straightened up, sighed, and turned around to face Bullet57. Or Bullet the Bully, as Murf and ShadowHog had taken to calling him. “What?”
“Your little friend. The little Hoggy.” Bullet57 made a snorting noise. “He took off, left you behind.”
“ShadowHog?” Max asked quickly. He didn’t care that Bullet57 smiled in that conceited self-satisfied way of his. Max wanted info and he wanted it now.
“Yeah, rumor has it he left late last night. Thinks he’s too good for the rest of us,” Bullet57 came closer, prodding the heap of neatly stacked stones with his boot. “He’s not in the Crew anymore.”
“I don’t think so,” Max replied. “He liked being part of the Ravagers’ Crew.”
“That’s the thing, though, he wasn’t part of the Crew. He was still a noob and I don’t think he’d ever have made the cut to become a Ravager. When he realized that, he left.” Bullet57 shrugged. “Good riddance, I say.”
“Are you sure?” Max followed Bullet57 as he walked away.
“Yeah. I heard it from Striker.” Bullet57 sneered at Max. “You can go ask him yourself if you don’t believe me, or just check the Crew status in your menu. But I’m not exactly going to lie about it, am I?”
“You might?” Max challenged. “This might be one more way of sabotaging the Crew.”
Bullet57 whirled around, fists clenched at his side. “I am not the saboteur.” He jabbed his finger at Murf. “Next time we’re outside of the base, you’d better watch yourself, Murf.”
“Are you threatening me?” Max asked.
Bullet57 took a menacing step closer to Max. “That’s what watch yourself usually means, dumbass.”
“You’re a bit defensive, aren’t you?” Max taunted Bullet57, leaning forward so that his chest rested on Bullet’s fingertip.
Bullet57 moved a hair’s breadth away. “We all know ShadowHog was the person going around sabotaging stuff. That’s why he left now because the others were on to him.”
Max jerked backward, cursing himself. “He wasn’t doing anything. We don’t even know if anyone here is screwing with things.”
“And how do you know that for sure?” Bullet57 asked. “Unless you’re the person who’s been messing with stuff.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “It did all start after you arrived.”
“That’s what you want everyone to think, isn’t it?” Max couldn’t back down now, he needed to push Bullet, act indignant so that he didn’t appear suspicious. “That’s how you plan to cover your tracks.”
“Yeah, sure,” Bullet57 agreed. “That’s what I’m doing.” He turned on his heel and marched back toward the farm area, leaving Max staring after him. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks except Striker and the other core members. And they know for sure that I am loyal to them and to the base.”
“We’ll soon see about that,” Max muttered under his breath. Frustrated at not being able to take Bullet57 out right there and then, Max kicked the ground, sending a shower of dirt into the air.
With arms swinging, he strode back to the damaged tower, ran up to the top, and glanced down at the base. Everyone was still at work, Mamba and Striker chatting on one of the other walls. They had no idea about the storm that was coming their way.
Max crouched down on the damaged wall and began taking out more of the stones, working out his anger on the rocks in case he punched someone instead. Tearing apart the Ravagers’ defenses gave him some satisfaction, but it didn’t alleviate Max’s sense of betrayal. Or were the Ravagers simply lying and telling all the noobs that ShadowHog had left, when really, he’d been kicked out? Or made to disappear.
Once that thought entered his head, it persisted, growing bigger and blooming into a full-on conspiracy theory.
Hadn’t Jag warned him this was what the Ravag
ers did? That they could make players disappear, find all of their personal data, and even access their bank accounts.
Max threw down his trowel and kicked it at the remaining end of the barrier, leaving a dent in the metal.
Leaving his work behind, he went back toward the main building where he logged off. He was done with work for the day.
Max pulled off his headset and threw it down onto the table beside his sofa, knocking over a coffee mug, which luckily was empty.
Shoving himself off the sofa, he went to the kitchen and grabbed a cold soda and some chips before he sat down on the sofa and switched on the TV. Grabbing his phone, he tapped on the screen and pulled up the private chatroom he used to talk to ShadowHog out of the game with his account for Murf, pressing the share button to bring it up on the TV.
It was empty.
Not just no ShadowHog online empty, but no ShadowHog existed kind of empty.
Max typed in the address of a forum where ShadowHog had posted comments over a period of months. No known user.
It was as if ShadowHog had never existed.
Max shoved his phone back in his pocket and stood up. With shoulders hunched, he stalked around the living room, trying to figure out what to do next. Was it right to ask his friends to commit to taking down the Ravagers if there was a chance they really could just disappear?
“Hey, what’s up?” Pez asked, coming out of his room.
“ShadowHog is gone.” Max followed Pez to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took a beer out. “Want one?”
Pez shook his head as he went to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup of coffee. He sipped it and winced. “Should have made a fresh pot.”
“I think the Ravagers got to him.” Max flipped the top off his bottle of beer and took a slug.
“Wait. Back up.” Pez wound his finger counterclockwise.
“I went to the Ravagers’ base and that asshole Bullet57 told me ShadowHog had left.” Max took another long slug.
“And how do you know he hasn’t?” Pez asked.
“Because only a couple of days ago I mentioned he should leave and go off on his own, but he said he couldn’t.” Max rolled his eyes. “I can’t see that he’d just strike off on his own.”