I nodded ambiguously.
“Ah, I see. If only someone could help them now. Wesley was beside himself when they jumped ahead of him and got the achievement!”
“You know him?”
“Yeah, he like used to hit on me,” she waved it off. “We go to the same school and have a couple classes together. But he’s not my type.”
“He’s an idiot,” Goosebumps shot out. “He doesn’t see a difference between the game and real life. Did you hear how he beat up some kid that wouldn’t share loot? Last year some time.”
“Really? And he got away with it?”
“The kid chickened out and didn’t tattle, so the school had to let it go. Our rating is low enough as is...”
Over the conversation, I realized everyone at the table went to the same school. The noisy crowd of twelve contained members of four clans and the traders Underweight and Overweight. Those two, refusing out of principal to join any clan, even a fun one, saw themselves as traders through and through. And recently they’d hit level ten and reached their goal. The system offered them the trader class.
As it turned out, battles and killing mobs weren’t the only way to level in the game. You could also do class quests. The traders Chris and Rita Wood got experience for every trade and, the better deal they got, the higher the margin, the more experience. Once they hit a high enough level, they could open their own shop and, with time, their own trading company.
And that was what the brother and sister were aiming at, spending all their time on trade and related quests.
The time flew by unnoticeably and I lost count of how many beers I drank. Earl, by the way, obligingly dripped his magical cheer elixir into every one. Undy, meanwhile, was now all red and stuck fast to a cute redhead named Emmy. Her hair color reminded me of Eve O’Sullivan’s. The trader, by all appearances, was squeezing his persuasion skills for all they were worth and, before too long, their seats were empty and they were gone.
“Hey, where did Undy go?” I asked at an odd moment, pointing to his place.
“Chris and Emmy? Up, probably,” Rita shrugged. “As usual.”
“Are they hooking up?”
“Who’s they?” she asked, astonished. “No, come on! Emmy just broke up with her boyfriend and she just met Chris today!”
As Rita got distracted answering somebody’s question, Goosebumps, a blonde, showing me sincere signs of attention, touched my sleeve:
“Hey, Alex, you think maybe we could dance?”
I thought she was cute, and I saw no reason to refuse. But I didn’t have time to answer.
“Goose, can I talk to you for a minute?” Rita asked insinuatingly, sitting back in her chair.
The girls walked into a corner, talked for a second and Rita Wood came back alone.
“Something came up. Silly Goose had to go somewhere,” she said. “So I’ll take her place.”
“Uh... in what way?” I asked, blunted.
“Let’s go Scyth, dance. Do you know how?”
I did. Since childhood, at every family celebration, Eve would always invite me to the “ladies choice” dance. The musicians on stage had just settled into a very romantic and I might say melancholy number, which wasn’t to say they were doing a bad job. The bards really were giving it their all. If I didn’t know they were the same age as all of us schoolkids, I might have taken them for professionals. Although the mechanics of this world were helping them, of course. I was sure bards had the ability to play musical instruments and sing, which leveled just like my combat skills, by use.
“You don’t have to worry about your feet. I have a talent for not stepping on them during dances.”
I got up, gave Rita my hand and led her out to the dancefloor, which was quickly filling with couples. Everyone danced as best they could, but most without sophistication. Generally they would press up as close to one another as possible and give their hands room to wander.
And we didn’t overthink it either. I took her by the waist, which seemed thinner than I expected, and Rita lay her head on my shoulder. We spun around at first slowly, getting used to each other’s rhythm, then started going a bit faster. I felt her hot back with my fingers. And she nestled up against me, pressing close and putting her head on my shoulder.
She gave off a slight aroma of beer and something flowery. I was no expert, but I liked the smell.
“You in a hurry?” she whispered into my ear.
“Sorry, we can move slow...”
“No, I’m talking about Dis. Maybe...”
Emergency exit has been activated by: external command from immersion pod!
Remaining time: 3...
“Rita, sorry, someone just hit my emergency exit button!” I shot out, disappearing from her embrace.
I couldn’t hear what she said back. I spent a bit of time in darkness in the pod, adapting until I got control over my body. I could hear muted voices from my room. The intra-gel flooded out, the door slid aside, and I saw mom.
“Alex, I didn’t know what else to do...” she said, distraught. “But it’s important.”
Tissa walked out from behind her. She too looked devastated.
Chapter 14. Taking a Losing Bet
“HELLO, TISSA,” I said.
“Hi...” she answered quietly, not knowing what to do with her hands. “I... at my...”
She stumbled. Tissa had been caught in the rain and was all wet, but that couldn’t be what had her so upset. Her usually pretty eyes were all red, one cheek bone was purple, and there were silent tears rolling down her velvety cheeks. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Melissa Schafer cry, and I’d known her since I was five.
In elementary school, Tissa’s over-strict father had once shaved her bald. Mr. Schafer probably didn’t mean to punish her or make her an object of mockery. It was probably all part of his idea of rationality and practicality. Less hair had to be washed less often, need less shampoo, dried faster and didn’t need to be brushed. Tissa’s father had basically raised his daughter as a boy and that included the way he dressed her. That lasted until middle school. The first time we saw Tissa after that summer break that year, we laughed. Even Greg couldn’t resist a smile. But she just joked back, letting it roll off her like water off a duck’s back.
She didn’t cry when she fell out of an overfilled school flying car either, and that broke her left arm. Or when I opened a door too hard and hit her forehead, or when Ed Rodriguez pulled her braids in third grade, or when little Hung stole her backpack and threw it on the roof of the school.
But now her eyes were full of tears. She was hovering next to my mom, biting her lip, but didn’t say a single word as I hurriedly and fitfully got dressed.
“Alright guys, I guess I’ll leave you alone,” mom said. “If you want some hot chocolate or a snack, just say the word. And yes... Melissa, it’s late, you can stay the night here if you want. I’ll make up the sofa in the guest room for you.”
Not waiting for an answer, mom left, carefully closing the door behind her.
I walked up to Tissa and hugged her in silence. I wasn’t sure how, but I realized that it was best to say nothing. She pressed up to my shoulder and burst into tears, soaking my t-shirt.
We stood like that for a very long time. Embracing hard, she was almost hanging off me and, at a certain moment I realized my knees were buckling and brought her over to the bed.
“Let’s sit down. My legs are tired after the pod.”
She nodded in silence. She got up on the bed and pulled her knees into her chest.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “But I should get some dry clothes on.”
“Of course.”
I pulled out a clean black t-shirt with a holoprint of the Solar System and extended it to her:
“Here, take this. I’m gonna go get us something to eat.”
Leaving her alone, I went into the kitchen. Dad was looking at something on his comm, mom was fussing ar
ound the multicooker and, when I came near she asked, unsettled:
“How is she?”
“I don’t know yet. I left to let her get dressed.”
“Pizza and hot chocolate?”
“Yes, that’d be great. Thanks, mom.”
“It’ll be ready in three minutes. Will you wait, or should I bring it in?”
“I’ll wait.”
“Then help. Get out the pizza cutter...” Mom went silent. “Have you and her been talking again for long?”
“Not really.”
“Be very delicate with Melissa, Alex,” Dad added. “I’ve heard her dad’s having problems. That might be affecting their relationship. Do you like her, son?”
I nodded. Father winked, gave a thumbs up and sank back into his comm, watching the news.
“Mark, I think Alex can figure it out on his own,” mom noted, upset. “But let me tell you one thing, son. If a girl is having problems and she flies off to see you, that’s saying something.”
“Agreed,” dad snorted, glued to his screen.
Mom rolled her eyes. Just then the timer beeped and she took a steaming pizza out of the multicooker.
“Ready!”
With four deft motions, she cut the pepperoni pizza into slices.
“Sauce?”
“No thanks, mom.”
She helped me bring in the pizza and mugs of hot chocolate, and there Tissa grabbed them, having changed clothes. We were left alone again.
Seeing her pants drying on the back of the chair, she must have been wearing nothing but the t-shirt. Well that and underwear. Be that as it may, it was long enough to cover her intimate garments... almost all the time.
She threw herself on the scorching hot pizza with a groan that seemed to emanate from deep in her gut. For the record, I was also famished.
“Thanks, Alex,” Tissa said after chewing through the first piece. “I had nowhere else to go.”
“What about the guys?”
“They’re in the hospital,” she said darkly. “Didn’t you hear? They got attacked today, and in a blind zone! They got the shit kicked out of them, even got some bones broken... It’s a good thing none of them got their skulls cracked.”
“Who?” the news had me choking. “Have they found the people who did it?”
“Some inwinova.[3] Hung ripped off one of their masks, but all he could see was that it was an Asian.”
“Have they established an identity?”
“Alex, no! As I said, it was in a blind zone, and surveillance data doesn’t show anyone there at all! By the looks of things, they were the only ones around. Sure! And they beat themselves up!”
“Do you think it was freeborn?”
I asked, referring to the growing social movement of people who refused to get medical chip implants. These days, everyone got a chip. At first they were just to monitor vital signs and provide timely medical aid. But as the technology progressed, the “medical” chips started having more functions and one of them was constant government surveillance over every citizen and noncitizen, but the name stuck.
“Maybe.”
“Were you with them?”
“That’s the thing. I wasn’t!” Tissa said, as if her presence might have prevented the attack. “They were flying alone because my father came to pick me up. Over a dump, their flying car deviated from its route and made a landing.”
“How is that possible?”
“Manual control was locked, and someone hacked into the automatic system... Alex, it was either freeborn or people with hacked chips. After all, if they know how to hack a flying car, they can’t be just simple hoodlums!”
I was dumbfounded. Every automatic system had its vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. But in everyday life, it was rare to encounter. The net was much more transparent than in the first years of its development, so full anonymity had become very nearly unachievable. All comms, both those integrated in the body and external ones were personalized, meaning they were tethered to just one owner. There was no way to access the net without a comm and, if someone did, it would be immediately disconnected! The VR police had grown into such a powerful organization that they outnumbered all other law enforcement bodies put together by many times, including both active AI security and boots-on-the-ground organizations. And what was more, regular police were more and more being replaced by robocops, a name invented by science fiction long before the first prototype was ever built.
Tissa chewed through the last piece of pizza and looked at me guiltily.
“I haven’t eaten anything since this morning. I went straight home from school, then from there to the hospital. At home I got into a fight with father... Then I wandered the city until nightfall, not knowing where to go. Thanks again.”
“Oh come on, it’s nothing. I had an idea. We should be looking for who stands to gain. Were...” I faltered: Tissa’s t-shirt slid aside a bit and my gaze caught on a bare thigh, “Were they robbed?”
“No. Malik had a gold chain on his neck, no one touched it. Nothing was taken. But it isn’t hard to guess who’s behind it, Alex...” Tissa sighed. “As the attackers were leaving, one of them said ‘a straight line segment can be drawn between any two points.’ Then he laughed as if he’d just made a very good joke.”
“A straight line... between two points... Axiom?”
“You’re smarter than the boys,” Tissa smiled sadly. “A statement so evident it can be taken without question. They didn’t put two and two together until I figured it out. It’s gotta be Axiom, or to be more accurate, Big Po. Wesley friggin’ Cho!”
“How are they?”
“I visited them in the hospital. They’ll be fine by tomorrow. The fractures will heal. The police officer investigating the case took some notes, said he’d interrogate Cho, but it’s impossible to prove anything. In his words, it looks like a bit of a stretch, just a way to try and slander someone over a conflict in Disgardium. He was more worried by the flying car hack! Moron! If we were higher category, he wouldn’t be acting this way! And you know what, Alex?”
With difficulty, I tore my eyes from a pearlescent patch of exposed skin. It made a big contrast with her tanned legs, drawing my gaze.
“What?”
“That spiteful, vengeful idiot will never stop! You should be careful too!”
“So should you. Nether, we can’t just leave it like this!”
“And what are you gonna do about it?” Tissa asked mockingly.
“We need to talk to him! Figure out if it was him or not...”
“Like he’s gonna tell you!”
“Whether he admits it or not, we’ll be able to make some conclusions based on how he reacts. I’m gonna go...”
I jumped up and started removing my clothes, heading into my pod.
“Hey, wait up, Alex!” she shouted. “It’s night now, he’s probably not gonna be there! We can talk tomorrow! We can fly to his school together...”
As soon as I stopped, I realized I was standing in front of her in just my underwear again. And this time I definitely should have covered up. My face flooded with red and, stumbling and falling leg-first into my pants, I got even more embarrassed. Tissa filled with good-natured laughter and I threw a pillow at her.
“Turn around!”
After I got dressed, I sat next to her.
“You’re lucky you weren’t with them.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” she shrugged indefinitely. “They’ve always treated me better than the guys.”
“Just a sec... So if you weren’t with them how did you...” I pointed at her cheekbone. “I understand what happened with the guys. But what about you?”
She turned dark and lowered her head.
“If it’s not too big a deal, I don’t want to talk about it. Can I stay here a couple days? When father comes to his senses, I can go back home...”
“So he’s the problem? Did he hit you?”
“No Alex, don’t even think of it!” Tissa shot up,
grabbed me and shook me, her eyes burning. “Don’t you dare! Tell! Anyone! Do you understand?”
“Got it.”
She pulled her hands away and started nervously pacing the room. I figured it was better to stay silent and wait for her to calm down. In real life, the priestess of light was famed for her flareups of anger, and quickness to forgive. And as usual, she calmed down soon enough. A few minutes later, her chest had stopped heaving, the lightning out of her eyes and she sat back down next to me.
Apostle of the Sleeping Gods Page 14