The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  “MIA!”

  That voice… Familiar. Where… Boat… Up ahead, the tall shape had vanished, gone as if never there and the next thing she knew something had been thrown about her shoulders, something tight and restricting. Instinctively she fought, struggled to break free, despite the warm confines.

  “Mia,” the voice said, not as loud or urgent, cutting through the fog of her mind. “Calm down. It’s David Wilsin. Your dad asked me to come out and look for you. Are you hurt?”

  Wilsin… Why would he come? Not that she was complaining. She grinned weakly through chattering teeth. “Da… David?”

  “The one and only,” he said. “Come on, let’s get you out of here into the warmth.”

  “No arguments there,” she said thickly. Her face was so cold she couldn’t feel her lips as they moved.

  They were about a minute from the hotel when Wilsin spotted them and stopped, bringing Mia to a halt with him. She was a tough girl, she was struggling badly but still going despite the presence of a bruise already forming on her temple, but he was having to support her more the closer they got to their goal. It had knocked her for a few, anyone could see that. At least she wasn’t as heavy as she might have been; he could support her weight easily, for long enough to get where they needed to be.

  “Huh? Wha’s happ’nin’?” she mumbled, her words slurred above the chattering of her teeth. He shushed her, stared towards the three figures heading away from them, each indistinguishable in the dark and the pouring rain, but for the way they walked. You could tell a lot about a person by the way they moved and Wilsin had to admit it was the first time he’d seen three individual people move the same way.

  Even when a group moved in unison, there were always individual traits of those involved setting them apart from the rest. Yet these three displayed none of those individual traits that would set them aside. Rather they had the same traits replicated thrice over. And that set his teeth on edge. His thoughts fell back to those three identical men he and Roper had spied earlier in the week. Now what were they doing sneaking off into the distance while everyone else was out of the way? That they carried large bags, full judging by the bulges protruding from the fabric just added suspicion on top of suspicion.

  He couldn’t check it out, not right now with Mia lolling her head onto his shoulders. Wilsin glanced up, caught the direction they were going and took note mentally before starting to move again.

  “Are they crazy?” Mia muttered in his ear. She’d seen them as well, though he doubted she’d made as much of them as he had. “Stupid to be out in this.”

  “You and I have no room to talk,” Wilsin said. Just another fifty yards and they’d be at the hotel. In the distance, he could see Arnholt pacing the sidewalk outside beneath the protection of a sodden canopy. He’d see them shortly. It could have been harder. He was glad it hadn’t been. Forty feet. Thirty.

  “Dad!”

  It was little more than a gasp as they hit twenty feet, the sound escaping Mia’s lips but Arnholt heard it, his ears pricked up and he turned with relief on his face. In five long strides he was over to them and Wilsin was glad to hand over the weight that had been growing steadily on him in the short time he’d been supporting her.

  “Mia,” he said, the relief palpable in his voice as he hugged her. “Divines, you’re freezing. Come on inside. And that bruise…” Just for a second, Wilsin saw a dark look pass across the face of his boss. Suddenly he was glad he wasn’t the one who’d put that bruise there. He tried to think of something scarier than a protective father with the certain set of skills Arnholt possessed and came up empty. “We’ll get it looked at.”

  He followed them to the entrance, felt the warmth on his face as he stood in front of the open doors. It’d be so easier to forget what he’d seen and go inside, just warm up, drink something hot and relax.

  But…

  He had to know. Even if there wasn’t anything suspicious going on, his instincts told him he needed to investigate. And he’d believed firmly for a long time in trusting those instincts. They might be misplaced on occasions, but they’d very rarely been wrong. Arnholt and Mia were already inside, both looking back at him.

  “David?” Mia asked. She already sounded a little stronger, the words coming through blue lips.

  Looking a lot happier than he felt, Wilsin grinned at her. “I’m just going to check those guys are okay,” he said, turning to leave. “They shouldn’t be wandering around like that in weather like this. Be safe, Mia. Your dad’ll take care of you.” He nodded at Arnholt. “At least I’d hope he would after all the trouble I went to in pulling your ass out the fire.”

  It didn’t take him long to trace his steps back to them and onto the same path they’d followed, a little applied logic telling him where to go next as he found himself at an intersection leading in three directions, one left, one right, one straight. Both the left and the right were small alleys he probably wouldn’t have noticed in the hustle and bustle of the daylight. Here and now though, emergency lights lit up the entrance to one of them, the words Drainage Control in neon.

  Maybe they’d been maintenance workers. Those had been some big bags they’d been carrying, could have held their tools. In which case, he should head back to the hotel and let them get on with it.

  But… Maybe he was getting jumpy. His first impression was that they’d looked decidedly sinister. And the way they’d walked, all identical in stride and poise, they hadn’t looked like maintenance workers then. At the very least, he should check it out. The building in question was small and nondescript, just inside the alley, sandwiched between two much larger buildings. It was little more than a shed really. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have given it much of a glace. These weren’t normal circumstances however and he found himself drawn to it in curiosity.

  The door was ajar and Wilsin jogged over and tested the handle, pulling it open. The lock had been broken, he could see that from here. Nobody inside the entrance. Maybe they’d just come in to get out of the rain. Maybe. But the hotel wasn’t far and to break into somewhere… That was suspicious indeed. He stepped inside, glad to be out of the downpour and shook himself off like a dog, wiping his hair from his eyes and smoothing it back to keep it away from his face. Already he felt a little better, at least until he saw the body.

  The guy was wearing a maintenance uniform, lay resting against one of the walls, a single entry wound to his head the only sign of what killed him. It wasn’t a hard one, Wilsin had to admit. It had burned straight through him; he could see the blood stains on the walls behind him. Wilsin noted the brown stains on his front, just as his boot clinked against something on the floor. A dropped cup or rather the remnants of it.

  Didn’t take a genius to work it out. The guy had been here, drinking something, he’d been taken by surprise and shot. With a growing bad feeling, David Wilsin reached into his pack and drew out his X7, suddenly comforted by the weight in his hand. At least he’d brought it with him. The idea of facing down a potential murderer around here with no way to defend himself beyond his own fists didn’t bode well. He reached up and activated his muffler and his personal shield, hoping he wouldn’t need them.

  He should call it in. Yet the storm, as Arnholt had informed him earlier, left him unable to make a connection. This didn’t sit right with him, an unusual circumstance if he was honest. In most other places, sure it might be slower, but it was unusual for the entire system to be compromised in a situation like this.

  Shoddy Vazaran engineers more likely. He was on his own. Wilsin gulped, before steadying himself. He was a highly trained agent of Unisco, there wasn’t anything here that should trouble him. Being jumpy wouldn’t kill him though.

  He took one step into the darkness, weapon pointed to the ground as he moved. Emergency lighting lit up the route ahead, enough for him to keep going in semi-light. He could hear the squelch underfoot of the wet ground, signs someone had been here recently. They’d come out of the r
ain and gone this way. He tried to avoid the squeak of his own footwear, the last thing he wanted to do was advertise his presence to someone ahead and walk into an ambush.

  He’d found a ladder, the rungs still wet and made the choice to head into the bowels of the building. Whatever was going on, it looked like it was where the action was. Although he could see light, it was hard to make out anything from up here.

  Descending into unknown, possibly hostile space… Oh joy. Exactly what you didn’t want to do. Unless you had to. And right now, it looked like he had to. If there was a murderer down there, he had to follow. That man had been someone’s son, possibly someone’s husband or father. And his loved ones would never see him again; they’d never hear his voice or see him do any of the dozens of little things that made up a life.

  He had to at least make the effort, he knew, as he climbed onto the ladder and started to descend, slowly at first to minimise sound before hitting the illuminated area. With it at head height and the ground in sight, he dropped the last few feet, blaster raised in front of him. Only then did he realise someone else was in the tunnel just up ahead of him. He stood up quickly, his boot squeaking on the grates beneath his feet.

  Nick Roper turned to face him, soaking wet from the rain, X7 in hand and surprise on his face.

  Chapter Eighteen. Those of Us About to Die.

  “Consider that the Divines no longer have a presence on this world beyond what they left behind. That much is plain for anyone to see. Yet this rather leads us to ask the question of what happened to them. Did they decide humanity no longer needed their leadership? Their presence? Their inspiration remains, it guides us all at some point in our lives. We can’t deny them for very long. We still try to supplicate them one way or another. I firmly believe… Keep in mind their powers are far beyond anything you or I can comprehend… I believe they left. I believe they are still out there and that one day they will come back.”

  Doctor Jeremiah Blut, leading a lecture on religious theory about the continued lack of presence of the Divines in the five kingdoms.

  The twenty fifth day of Summerdawn.

  There was a train of thought existing in many quarters, one not really proven, but widely agreed to have a small ring of truth to it. Due to the processes involved in claiming them, some spirits will invariably start to resemble their callers of in their traits.

  David Wilsin could see all the arguments for the theory in Nick Roper, what he’d seen in his spirits when he’d fought. The reactions were fantastic, the speed and the coordination just as honed. More than that, he could see it etched on his features. The willpower. The desire to stay alive. This was a man who would shoot first and ask questions later if he felt is life was in danger. A survivor. It was a useful skill to have among Unisco agents, only the best stayed alive. It was also everything he hoped he’d never quite become during his career.

  The X7 told him what he was. Unisco. His colleague. Nobody else carried the weapon. Roper hadn’t lowered it all the way, he raised an eyebrow and grinned.

  “Out for a walk, are we? The charming hotspots of Carcaradis Island in all their beauty under the light of the moon.”

  “You know it,” Wilsin said. “Care to point that thing somewhere else? We’re on the same side here. Agent Roper, I presume.”

  Roper said nothing.

  “I can see through your muffler, if you’ve got it on, you log. But if it’d suit you, I’ll reach in and show you my…”

  “Agent David Wilsin,” Roper said. “I know who you are. Caught onto you a lot faster than you caught onto me.” He grinned at him. “Now show me your shield and tell me what you’re doing down here. Just humour me.”

  Wilsin didn’t hesitate; he brought out the silver badge and smiled. “Satisfied?” He thought about asking for Roper’s; didn’t feel like he had a case to demand anything with a blaster pointed at his head.

  “A little. You still didn’t…”

  “Someone died upstairs.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you do it?” Wilsin honestly didn’t believe it, yet it felt wise to ask.

  “Hells no. Dead when I got here. No signal to call it in. Came down here to see if I could track them. You?”

  “Same. You just happened across this place?”

  “I keep my eyes open,” Nick said. “Nothing suspicious gets past me. You ever seen rain like this?”

  “Not in Vazara. Or anywhere else for that matter. Not like this. Not this quickly. Don’t tell me we got bad guys who built a weather machine?”

  “Couldn’t say,” Nick said. “Noorland told me it wasn’t possible. In theory anyway. He said there’s not a power source big enough anywhere in the kingdoms to make it work. Nah, it’s probably just coincidence. What were you doing down here anyway?”

  Wilsin swallowed, wiped his face again. “The boss’s daughter. I went looking for her.”

  “Oh, you dog.”

  At least the flush hitting his cheeks warmed his skin. “Nothing like that. She went missing in the rain.”

  “She okay?” He could hear the concern in Nick’s voice.

  “Found her unharmed. Nothing that won’t cure. Anyway, I saw… Remember those three guys the other day?”

  “The identical ones?”

  “Yeah. Well I saw them wandering about. I know there’s no law about walking around in the rain…” He smiled weakly as he said it. “But it’s suspicious. I got a bead on where they were going, managed to find this place. They looked like they might be armed.”

  “Those big bags? That wound that killed that guy upstairs, what would you say that was? Looks too big to be a sidearm wound. My bet would be some sort of blaster rifle.”

  Wilsin shrugged. “Wouldn’t disagree. I didn’t look too closely.”

  “Squeamish?”

  He shook his head. “Hells no. But if they’re armed, it’s probably best to try and find them before they do some damage.”

  “Everyone’s concentrated into small areas right now,” Nick said. “We have to contain this. If they got out, opened fire into one of the hotel lobbies, they’d hurt dozens. This is what we’re trained for.”

  With that, he turned and started to walk down the tunnel. Wilsin sighed, cautions about waiting for backup dying in his throat. He was right, of course. If there were only the three of them, he and Nick could take them. One on one, even one versus two, Unisco agents were trained to be the best.

  “Maybe we can end this without violence,” he said thoughtfully. He genuinely hoped that would be the case. Nick was right, gathering local law enforcement together to deal with it would take too long. This had the potential to be a real mess and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “First time for everything,” Nick said, taking something from his pack. Within moments, he had the glasses on his face, staring at the ground. Wilsin knew what they were; he had a pair back in his hotel room. Infrared glasses. Clever. He hadn’t expected he’d need them. In hindsight, he wouldn’t have guessed he’d need his X7 either though.

  “You came prepared,” he said lightly. “You see anything?”

  Nick said nothing, running his gaze up and down the corridor. If there were any footprints here, he’d have them spotted in no time. They could follow them straight to the source. Brilliant!

  “Nick?”

  “Yeah,” he said, lifting his head up and pointing straight on. “They went that way. There’s a lot of them.”

  “Our bad guys?”

  “The freshest are all wearing the same boots. Some of them overlap so it’s hard to say. More than three pairs, I’d say.”

  “How many of them?”

  “At least six, as many as ten.”

  “Ten against one? You were feeling brave when you set out on this.”

  “Now it’s ten against two. The odds are never as good as you want them to be. You’re good to volunteer.”

  “Reckon they’ll cooperate?”

  “Would you? They looked trained. That cou
ld work either way. Depends if they’re mercenaries or idealists.”

  Wilsin knew he had a point. If they were fighting for a belief, they’d likely go to the death, especially if some nutter had promised them a rewarding afterlife. Couple of hundred virgins or a few sluts, all that stuff. If they were being paid, well they knew the risks, all of them would kill but very few were willing to die for a cause they didn’t believe in.

  Ahead of them a door stood ajar, and Nick pointed “Through there.”

  Wilsin looked at it, then at Nick. They could both hear it. Voices. At least two, maybe more.”

  “Think we should tell Noorland to make us some x-ray glasses at some point?” Nick quipped, removing his glasses and tucking them into his shirt. He knelt, examined the door. It was made of some heavy-looking metal, the edges lined with rust. The keyhole was small and dark, but it wouldn’t be a factor. With it slightly ajar, just from the right angle…

  Nick leaned right. Wilsin rested against the left, just enough to see inside. The voices were muffled, but noticeably loud enough to mark them as close. Were they close enough to take them down without much fuss? He could see in, saw three of them. Gestured to Nick with his fingers. Three of them. He banged the knuckles of his left hand four times. He could see them. They were wearing dark uniforms, no badges or logos of any kind. By the looks of it, none were the triplets from the streets. Four bumps. Take at least four seconds to get to them on foot.

  A shot from an X7 would take a lot less time to land though. Split second to aim, fire and aim again. They could do it. They’d have to be good. But not exceptional. Hitting stationary targets was easier than getting into a firefight. Get it right, they’d be able to take two down with the right shots as they went in. Third one might be tricky. Hopefully his reactions would be slow, and they could disable him without too much trouble.

  Two against three, leading to two versus seven, were better odds than two versus ten. The latter would leave them needing a miracle to survive, never mind win despite what Nick insisted.