This begged the next question: What’s going on? In our day and age, it’s as difficult for an individual to vanish from the web as, say, sneak into a bank’s central vault. The Imitators automatically recognize faces on any uploaded photos and embed links to personal pages on social media. Marina’s page was utterly blank, virginal, as if no one had used it since its creation. Did Marina really have no friends? Did she not go to any parties that inevitably generated mountains of holograms, videos and similar dross—that would immediately be reshared by anyone involved? That can’t be possible, and yet according to the web no one had seen Marina in the past year.
That cannot not worry me.
My hands reached for the communications device of their own volition, projecting a list of Corporation employees to my screen. Two million, three hundred thousand employees throughout the world, ignoring the cadres of freelance artists. An intimidating number! Our continent only had four hundred twenty thousand of them, of which seventy-two thousand were occupied with technical matters. That’s a bit better. There were over a hundred Peters in this list, but even here a deep disappointment awaited me. Not one of these faces resembled Petruccio as his coworker had referred to him. God damn. What the hell kind of a day is this? No Marina and no Petruccio! Although the latter surely must be around here somewhere. No one would let some random stranger place prisoners in their capsules. And yet this person was not among the current personnel on the Corporation’s website. Okay…What was Peter’s partner’s name? Damn! I have absolutely no idea!
STOP!
Current personnel!
What if Peter is no longer employed?
I didn’t manage to find a list of the Corporation’s former employees, but I did come across another no less interesting article: ‘Technician commits suicide.’ A black and white photograph of Peter, dressed in an oversized sweater, looked at me from my screen, as though asking: ‘Why me?’ According to the article, the guy had jumped off an office building as a result of a messy breakup—and spattered some innocent passersby in the process. These passersby turned out to be busybodies who sued the Corporation and were awarded damages for the inconvenience. And here the tale of Peter, a good guy and friend, came to a meek end.
Yet another thread that could have led me to Marina had been torn and torn so completely that there was no way for me to follow up.
I spent another while aimlessly looking at photos of Corporate employees, peering into the faces of the lucky few who led lives that were difficult but carefree. I managed to unearth a photo of James Boaster, manager of the innovations department. In his photo he looked a lot older than his avatar. I also stumbled across my old mentor, the one who had guided our small team in our assault on Barliona seven years ago. Dr. Samuel Provo, PhD, was now a senior specialist in the Corporation’s department of IT security. I recognized him by the familiar look of condescension on his face, as if he’d seen the entire world and decided that he was the only source of reason and logic in it. Finally, I peered for a bit at Mr. Peter Johnson, the head of this entire mess. He looked like an ordinary person, not very tall, slightly doughy and balding. An average middle-manager type. It’s hard to imagine that behind this unassuming face lay concealed a powerful analytic mind and the title of the most influential person on our planet. A long, long time ago, he had bet everything on his capsules and ended up becoming the…
Connection established…
The notification tore me away from my examination of the various actors behind the scenes of our world. I didn’t allow my computer to transmit the video uplink, limiting my broadcast to audio, but the others didn’t bother to play hide and seek. The screen split into four quarters, one of which remained black—that was mine. The other three frames were occupied by Marina, a young man of between 25 and 30, and Donotpunnik—old and in a wheelchair.
“Mahan, why don’t you turn on your video uplink?” Hellfire spoke up first, his fingers clicking through a rosary’s beads. “I prefer to see who I’m talking to.”
“Hell, how old are you anyway?” I blurted instead of responding when I realized that Hellfire, despite the years he’d spent in Barliona and his high rank, really was very young.
“Twenty-seven,” the warrior replied proudly, clearly considering this one of his chief achievements. “I began when I was 15.”
“Let’s skip Hellfire’s glorious past,” Marina interrupted. “We have more important questions to discuss. Mahan, will you tell us why you ran off?”
“Didn’t feel like sharing Petruccio’s fate,” I replied honestly.
“What Petruccio? What fate?” Donotpunnik creaked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marina cut him off, then added: “But I understand your motive. Okay, we’ll skip this topic and return to the one at hand. The Tears of Harrashess.”
“The Tears can wait too,” I interrupted Marina. “I’ve accumulated too many questions. If I don’t get some answers to them, I won’t do a thing.”
“Ask away then,” Donotpunnik smirked. “This is precisely why you can see us as well as this lovely girl.”
“I’m sure my reasons for wanting to hurt Phoenix are familiar to everyone,” I began. When all three nodded to the affirmative, I went on: “However, I’m utterly baffled by why Hellfire and Donotpunnik are here. When Hellfire suddenly appeared in Altameda, I thought that he’d been sent by Anastaria, who’d somehow managed to infer the situation from the scraps of info available to her. But it turns out that Hell, the second-ranked player in Phoenix, is actively pursuing the destruction of his own clan. Maybe it’s me, but I’m picking up a little cognitive dissonance here—a surge of paranoia, if you will—and I’m beginning to imagine Anastaria grinning behind old Hell’s back.”
“In other words you have no qualms about me?” Donotpunnik smirked again. “And while you suspect that Hell is Anastaria’s spy, you don’t do the same for Plinto?”
“Plinto is a separate question. I’d like to get an answer to the question at hand first. And I wouldn’t mind finding out your reasons for participating in this either, Marina. You know what I’m referring to.”
“Then I will begin,” Donotpunnik offered. “One way or another, this is my plan and I’ll be the one to describe how it’ll work. I’ve been plotting how to destroy Phoenix for the last five years. They were untouchable from the outside. In terms of resources, Phoenix exceeds my Azure Dragons by orders of magnitude.”
“I thought the Azures were Undigit’s clan?”
“Undigit is as much the head of my clan as Plinto was the head of the Dark Legion. A temporary shell. A screen. I’m content to make the decisions and have Undies deal with the paperwork. Let the boy have his fun. Now then. It wasn’t possible to destroy Phoenix from the outside, so I decided to do it from within. For that, I needed my own people inside the clan. Three years of searching led me to Hellfire and Marina. The former had a lot of authority in Phoenix, the latter had access to the developers. We conceived a plan and spent two years developing it to its logical conclusion. Phoenix will be deposed in short order.”
“I still haven’t understood the reasons for Hellfire’s involvement.”
“Tell me, do you know how many intercontinental clan competitions Phoenix has won in the past five years?” Hellfire spoke up.
“Zero?”
“Bingo! The players of other continents are busy developing their characters, leveling up, conquering new heights. At the same time, Phoenix has become a swamp that swallows everyone in it, turning them into self-satisfied and condescending morons! There is no such thing as a free ride! How many times did I tell them that they had to focus on the game instead of the game around the game? But Anastaria just laughed in my face. My face! The nonsense of a half-crazed boy—that’s how she dismissed every proposal I came up with. She never took me seriously at the clan meetings, laughed at me, mocked me and whenever I was about to give her my reply, she’d hide behind her beloved daddy. When Donotpunnik offered to act as intermediary between me
and the Smoldering Pine clan from the Celestial Empire, I was happy to agree to his terms. I won’t reach the heights I deserve as long as I stay in Phoenix. The clan shall suffer the punishment for its mockery. And that is precisely why I’m here.”
“Marina?”
“No need to look at me like that! Between these two, I’m the least involved. In the course of my everyday job, I earned some contacts among the Barliona developers. Herbert approached me with an offer to participate in this venture. I agreed to the incentives he was offering and so here I am.”
“Herbert?”
“I prefer to be called Donotpunnik,” wheezed the old man. “I’ve gotten quite used to my handle over the last ten years.”
“So who was the old man that introduced me to the plot?”
“A hired actor,” Donotpunnik explained. “An ordinary actor. I didn’t know what condition you were in after your release and decided to play it safe. We cooked up a story about a bloody revenge motivated by the sorrows of an old man. Basically we had to do whatever it took to get you to work with him—and abandon any plans of reconciling with Anastaria. Now that you’re clearly with us, I see no further reason in hiding.”
“Onto the question of my imprisonment then. Marina?”
“It was the only option I had to ensure that the people with the skills I needed remain in Barliona,” Donotpunnik explained in the girl’s stead. “So I engineered events in a manner that would land you in prison.”
“What?!”
“Who were you before your imprisonment? A freelance artist earning forty thousand credits a month? A hacker jealously guarding his talents? A player who’d managed a measly 86 levels in three years of gameplay? Do you really prefer the young man of back then—one in the full flower of youth but without any opportunities for development—to the man you are today—one of the most promising Shamans of our continent? Now you’re the head of an enormous clan with as many unique items and bonuses as a pine has needles. A financially independent person with the ability to hire a security firm at will. Don’t you like this? Well so and there you have it! There’s no need to grandstand and play the victim. Half a year in the mines was merely your down payment for the fortune you now enjoy. Enjoy your new life!”
“In that case, why did Marina show up and feed me a fairy tale about our bet? Why suggest that I ask lawyers to reexamine my case?”
“Because a certain someone couldn’t trust his allies and escaped their protection,” Herbert said tersely. “Did you think that Phoenix would let you go so easily? After everything you had done? Hah! Anastaria’s people were watching you from the moment you were released. They led you on like a rabbit! It’s dangerous to speak openly in Barliona—when the investigation begins, they’ll dig up all your conversations. Hence the fairy tale as you call it. We needed you to get used to the idea that Marina is a part of your clan, that she is someone you could trust. It would’ve worked too, if it weren’t for the pendant. You weren’t supposed to know that Hellfire and Marina were dating. So I decided to reveal my hand and speak with you openly. I was tired of constantly adapting my plans to fit your exploits.”
“Why me?”
“Because you were the first. We only found ten people capable of following the way of the creator and becoming Shamans. Three gave up, two didn’t pass the final mine, four never created anything and you were the only one left. That’s why we’re talking to you right now and not some other guy.”
“You sent another nine people to prison?!”
“This is war!” Donotpunnik cut me off. “There must always be casualties in war. You understand. No one barred them from making the same journey as you. They didn’t make it, so it’s not even worth thinking about them!”
“This isn’t a war. This is some kind of madness!” I muttered in shock. The brief time I’d known Donotpunnik I considered him a decent person, but now I was realizing that I was talking to a madman. And he wanted us to work together? As if!
“This is war, kid. A true war, and it’s time you decide whose side you’re on. If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Our conversation is starting to get off topic,” Marina spoke up, before Donotpunnik could answer. “No one is threatening anyone. We have a common goal that we want to achieve. You’ve heard our motives and we understand yours. We won’t be working together for long, merely until we give the Tears to Phoenix’s leaders. Let’s try and be constructive. Daniel, do you have any further questions?”
“Three Tears won’t mean much to Phoenix,” I said, trying to squash my anger.
“This is precisely why we’ve increased their number to thirty. After activation, you’ll hand one Tear to Hellfire. His stats will double and he’ll be able to convince Ehkiller to equip his best Raiders with them. You’ll hand them the activated Tears and at that point the Phoenix clan will become the best in the world. You can charge five hundred million per tear. Lastly, you’ll cite the help that Hell has provided you with as the reason for why you’ve given him one for free. Are there any questions?”
“Why would you want to make Phoenix the best clan in the world?” To be honest, I was pretty surprised. “I heard a completely different description of the Tears, which suggested that they do immense harm to the players that possess them.”
“The Tears cannot be unequipped,” Donotpunnik explained. “Let them be gods temporarily. It’ll only be temporarily. After we’ve made sure that all thirty have equipped the Tears, we’ll use Geranika to activate the Tears’ other properties—the ones you’ve already heard about. At that point, all of Phoenix’s Raiders will be incapacitated. All of their majesty will crumble and all their heroes will become mere dolls. That will be a mighty blow indeed!”
“Phoenix will complain to the admins.”
“Good! There will still be the Salva. That’s why we need you.”
“There’s only one thing I don’t get—how are you going to make sure that Geranika does what you want? Any step the developers make is checked several times. Their own security service will eat them alive. I like your idea, but it seems that it’s doomed to fail from the outset. And I don’t feel like joining a project that’s doomed from the start.”
“You’re right about the security service. They could easily throw a spanner in the works—if of course we don’t have our own people among them,” Marina smiled. “Think about it, Daniel. How do you think we found you? Who knew that you had the premonition you have? Who could arrange it so you were assigned the Shaman class?”
“Hello, wanderer!” The black quarter of the screen began to waver and a new member of the anti-Phoenix conspiracy came into focus. Samuel Provo, PhD. The mentor who had taught me everything I knew. The same mentor who had once betrayed me.
“You?!” I blurted out.
“Why, whom did you expect? Santa Claus? Santa Claus wouldn’t send you a faulty technical portal in Dolma! You thought someone had just left it there? Hah! That was my first successful attempt at modifying the game. Beatwick, the Dungeon, the title of Earl. I led you like my own son, providing you with everything you needed and helping you overcome the obstacles you encountered. I never forgot what you did for me, Daniel, and now I’m doing everything I can to settle the debt I owe you. Soon the day will come when we will be even.”
“Now do you understand how serious we are, Dan?” Marina raised an eyebrow. “We’ve almost completed the entire journey. There’s not much left and we need your help. We’ve laid all our cards on the table. All that’s left is to deliver the final blow!”
“Plinto. What about him?” I managed with difficulty. To say that I was shocked wouldn’t be saying anything. A senior security specialist is far from an entry-level position in the Corporation. If he’s in on this plot, the scale of the conspiracy must be immense indeed.
“He’s been with Anastaria from day one. Once upon a time he was in Phoenix, but Ehkiller and Evolett decided that it’d be better to t
urn him into a hell-raiser and unite all of Barliona’s riffraff behind him. That’s how he became the head of the Dark Legion.”
“He sends reports about your clan to Ehkiller regularly,” Hellfire added. “How many, where, who, what and why. In vivid detail. How do you think I have the coordinates to Altameda? You think I found out from Dr. Provo? Why run the risk? Plinto spilled them like a good lapdog. The last six months you’ve been surrounded by players from Phoenix, Mahan. Anastaria’s said several times that the main goal is to open the Tomb and strip you of everything. How much did you lose on the Imperial Steel? Tens of millions! If the opportunity had presented itself, Anastaria would have taken it for free, but there were limits even for her. Clutzer, that is.”
“Plinto’s coming to Armard with us,” I said, stubbornly ignoring the facts before me. “I need the bonuses that he’ll get there. And I don’t care if he’s Anastaria’s man. Those bonuses will be mine.”
“One of my Rogues will go with him,” Donotpunnik agreed. “To be honest, I forgot about the Emperor’s wife. Thanks for the reminder. I’m not opposed—Plinto will help us earn the bonuses that’ll allow us to beat Phoenix too. Furthermore, three of my Mages will activate the portal and, as soon as we get the Tears, they’ll start to summon our men to Armard. Only mine—I’m not about to share that loot with anyone else.”
The Way of the Shaman [06] Shaman's Revenge Page 34