Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  I’ll admit I was a bit embarrassed, but I didn’t let it show, instead going for indignant acceptance, “Fine. What is it that you wanted to talk about? Ooh, maybe we could talk about how the Sergeant went from arresting me in my place of work, then having me released three hours later?”

  He clearly didn’t appreciate my tone, though he was also obviously glad that I wasn’t having a go at him anymore.

  “Alright then, now we’re getting somewhere. Mind if we sit?” he asked before walking over and plopping down on my couch without waiting for me to respond.

  “First thing’s first,” he said as I sat down beside him, “I need you to keep in mind that none of this information can leave your flat until we give the go ahead, it’s still an active investigation and anything you put out could make it harder for us to prove your innocence.”

  “Course, wouldn’t want whoever it is to go to ground.” I said as if I knew what I was talking about. I like watching detective shows.

  “Exactly. Now, the reason you were released from custody. The email correspondence we had? The ones that showed you communicating with someone else? They kept going back and forth long after we’d brought you in as if you were still at your work computer. We had eyes on your PC that confirmed no one in your office was near it either. Keepin’ up so far?”

  I nodded, “Yeah, someone either hacked my computer, or was bouncing off my IP.”

  “Pree much, yeah. We ended up trackin’ it back to an abandoned house in north London. No one’d been there in years from the look of it. After that the trail just ended, no phones, no emails, nothin’. A lil’ too much nothin’ if you ask me. IT forensics reckons they have some sort of portable WiFi device.”

  I gave him a mocking look, “Like just about everything? My phone’s got a WiFi hotspot feature.”

  He shook his head, “Nah, not talking small scale. Somethin’ like an RV, like the proper bus ones, with a built-in private server. There were tyre tracks leading away from the house that’d been cleaned up in a hurry, and we’ve got footage of the front of something comin’ in ‘bout a week back, then the footage loops. ‘Parently no one was allowed to go through the place either, was cordoned off by MPs in black armour, only there’s no record of any local guns bein’ assigned to the area.”

  I went to ask for more information, but the anxiety that had already started to invade my chest pleaded with me to stop talking about whomever it was that was after me. “So… What happens now?”

  “That’s good,” he said with a smile, “the best thing you can do in these situations is know as little as possible, otherwise you risk messin’ up your information and gettin’ yourself in trouble. Anyway, what happens now is I offer you an out.”

  “An out?”

  “Yeah, the Commissioner and the MP Commander have offered to do a press release with you. A sorta media bomb where you go up in front of a bunch of journalists and say your piece, tell everyone how you were falsely convicted.”

  Something about the whole thing seemed a bit off, like he was holding something back so that someone else had to tell me. “What do you get out of this?” I asked with as much effort as possible to hide my accusatory tone.

  Will let out a sigh and shrugged, “It’d help if you also told ‘em that we treated you well, and that you’ve become the victim in this case, not the perpetrator, and the MPs are doing everything they can to make sure you’re looked after and are hunting down whoever it is that’s after you.”

  I couldn’t help but scoff, “Seriously? You want me to bail you guys out after what you did? I was up all night just trying to make up for the fact that you lot locked out my character.”

  “What did you expect us to do? The second we knew what was going on we had to act fast. Besides, it’s just a 24 hour ban, it was the most they were willing to do until everything was confirmed.”

  I had a little sarcastic laugh to myself about the fact that a game company had a better sense of justice than the police. Then I started thinking about what if I’d turned out to be actually guilty, making me realise that it was probably for the best that they acted first, thought later.

  “When would you want me to do it?” I asked after doing a good deal of pros and cons in my head.

  “Later today, ‘round lunch time’d work best.” Will said as he stood up and flattened out his coat.

  “Will you be able to set that sort of thing up in time?”

  He gave me confident smile and nodded, “Trust me, everyone wants a piece of this story. The second we announce it they’ll be on it.” he said before walking toward the door, “We’ll send a car ‘round eleven, give you time to get cleaned up.”

  That was it. He left without saying goodbye, which I definitely didn’t mind, and shut the door hard behind him. I slumped back into the couch and blew a tired raspberry as I started looking over the newspaper again.

  It was strange, my heart was thumping, I wasn’t panicking about writing a speech or anything, I was just deeply, deeply annoyed. Probably had something to do with not quite being fully awake.

  That’s when Gerald peeked his weary face around the corner, “He’s gone, yeah?”

  I chuckled weakly and nodded, “Left a little bit ago, how long have you been up?”

  “Since you got up.” he said as he stepped out and rubbed his head, “Sorry, at first I didn’t know whether or not you wanted me out here, and after that it just became more and more awkward. Everything okay?”

  “Well I’m going to go ahead and assume you heard what he said, so yeah, I’m okay. Annoyed, but fine. Wanna have a shower then get some breakfast? Looks like I’ve got a bit of day ahead of me.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, walking over to the backpack I hadn’t noticed he’d brought and pulling out some clothes, “how do you want to run the rest of the day?”

  I shrugged, “I guess I’ll play it by ear, I reckon you should head home though. Not because I don’t want to be with you! It’s just that I don’t think the MPs will make room for you in whatever they bring.”

  “Works for me.” he said with a big smile, “I’ll get to watch you on the telly, it’ll be great. You want to do another game tonight?”

  “Yeah, I’ll make sure you get some sleep though, you’re back at work tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  Gerald gave a defeated sigh then nodded, “Yeah, don’t want to though.”

  “When do we ever get to do what we want?” I asked laughingly, only barely undercutting the obvious tone of depression.

  I was not looking forward to the next few hours, but I had no bloody idea how bad it was actually going to get.

  Bishop: Chapter 2

  Bishop’s skin burned, the steam from the pipe he’d run through having been on him long enough to cause some short-term effects. He didn’t care that the pain would be gone in the next few minutes, he was far too busy being angry at himself for wasting two bullets.

  He flinched as a train ripped by his hiding place, a small maintenance room in the side of a long and winding tunnel. It would take a while for anyone to find him down there, especially considering the squad that was chasing him was down a man.

  So far none of the four lockers he’d broken into had had any duct tape, so he could fix the bullet hole in his backpack. An involuntary seethe of pain escaped him as the makeshift stitches on his second gunshot wound on his right side popped. Luckily it was barely a graze compared to what it could have been if the shooter’s aim had found itself two inches to the left.

  He was about to give up on the search in an angry huff when his hands closed around a metal cylinder in the top of one of the grated lockers. It was a water bottle, half full, and he drained it in a second, in which he found a little bit of peace.

  ‘Just calm down,’ he said to himself, ‘stop slamming things around and focus, you’ve got this.’

  A few deep breaths later and he calmly turned to the desk he hadn’t touched yet, other than to put his backpack down on it. Without wasting a seco
nd he got on his knees and found what he’d expected, a small plastic organising cabinet, each of the five drawers was a different colour and had labels above the handles.

  Bishop almost whooped with happiness when he saw the one at the bottom labelled ‘Tapes’. Instead of picking up the whole thing, he just pulled out the tape drawer and put it on the table. There were a few rolls of standard sticky tape rolling around, as well as some masking tape, but the one was looking for was right there on top, a nice, big, fat roll of duct tape.

  He tore off a section and put it across the hole in his backpack, before stuffing the whole roll into his quickly emptying food pocket and pulling the bag on.

  Terror had a firm grip on him as he looked out into the tunnel in the direction he’d come from, waiting for the hi-tech hitmen to come hammering around, but they never did.

  The past thirty minutes had made the hairy couple of hours beforehand look like a relative cakewalk for Bishop, and it didn’t look like it was going to get better any time soon, especially if he couldn’t stop the bleeding.

  Kylia: Chapter 5

  The morning had been pretty good, the cold sense of dread looming having really put a damper on things. Gerald and I were more than ready to get the whole ordeal over and done with by the time the Sergeant came to the door, a light peck on the cheek the only real sign of affection either of us could muster.

  “You ready for today?” the Sergeant asked as we left Gerald to lock up my flat.

  I looked down at the nice dress I was wearing then back at him, “Do I look it?”

  “I’ve seen worse.” he laughed, “You’ll do fine.”

  I frowned as we passed one of my curious neighbours peeking out her door, “We can hope so, can’t we.”

  “Don’t worry, worrying is what’ll get you in the long run.” he said, pushing the button on the side of his helmet that made his tinted visor slide down.

  “Heh, is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Little bit, yeah. Trust me, I’ve done these things a million times before and I’m not exactly the best public speaker.” he said as he opened the door to my building for me, something that I was sure was for the benefit of any of the hiding photographers and not me.

  “They’re scared of you though,” I said as I walked toward the sleek, black 4X4 that’s rear door had been opened the second I left the building, “they just see me as some cheater who got off light.”

  “This is your opportunity to prove them wrong then.” he said as he scanned the area and waited for me to get in the car. “After today everything’ll be back to normal, I’m sure of it.”

  I smiled weakly and nodded, which the Sergeant took as his cue to shut the door. The glass was almost impossible to see through, and when I turned to look around the rest of my transport I discovered the vehicle was actually built a bit more like a train cabin, two seats in the back facing forward, of which one I occupied, then two more against the front seats facing backward, which had two rather superior looking gentlemen with short white hair.

  One of them had a helmet in his lap and was wearing armour similar to the MPs’, though gold and black instead of white, and significantly more decorative. The other wore something a bit less militaristic, a nice suit with a few medals on his breast pocket.

  “You must be the Commander,” I said with a smile, “and you the Commissioner.”

  The Commander gave me a stoic nod, while the Commissioner went for the more personable approach, “Yes, and you Kylia Redmond. I must apologise for all the muck about over the past few days. You must be exhausted.” he said formally, the silver spoon he’d clearly been fed with throughout his life dripping from his words.

  “Quite.” I said politely, turning the entirety of my attention to the Commissioner.

  “Well, I assure you that we’re doing our very best to bring the person, or persons, who attempted to frame you to justice. I hope you understand why the Commander’s MPs had to go in.”

  I nodded, “Of course,” I said, realising just how much my vocabulary changed when I got dressed up, “it was all that you could do. Couldn’t have cheaters and hackers running around, could you?”

  The Commissioner smiled gratefully, “No, of course not. I’m glad that you’ve been so cooperative throughout this whole matter, it can’t have been easy to decide to help us, because, let’s face it, that’s all you’re really doing today.”

  “I wouldn’t say that’s all I’m doing Commissioner. It’s also certainly going to improve my standing, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to get a platform like this without your help.”

  It was weird trying to sound appreciative to the man who undoubtedly had at least a small part in my arrest, but it seemed the right thing to do. If I could just keep things calm and cordial for the next few hours I’d be back to gaming and working off my debt at a manageable rate in no time.

  Then a thought occurred to me, “Speaking of, where are we going?”

  “City Hall,” the Commander said in an almost booming voice, “seemed like it would be the best place to go for something like this, makes it clear that the government here is behind you and willing to help.”

  I skipped over the whining about the hour long drive and went straight to excitement that I was going to City Hall, “Will I meet the mayor?”

  The Commander shared a significant look with the Commissioner, then gave a half-hearted nod, “Possibly. Depends on whether or not the Prime Minister’s here on one of his ‘quiet visits’, she likes to block out the whole week then.”

  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t exactly a huge fan of the reigning government, but in the same way that I’d probably get a bit of a cheeky smile if Hitler signed a book in my hands, I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to possibly meet someone in that high standing. Even meeting the Commissioner and the Commander was slightly flustering after seeing them on the telly.

  Most every part of me wanted to take a nap, however I forced myself through the pain of consciousness. I’d spent a good deal of time making sure I looked somewhat presentable, and I wasn’t going to have my first interview involve me with a big red mark on the side of my head.

  Besides, every time my eyes did dip shut for a little too long the driver would make a turn and my centre of gravity would shift out of place. It wasn’t helping that the two men in front of me seemed to either hate each other to the point they couldn’t stand to hear the other’s voice, or were so concerned to open their mouths in front of a civilian that they’d sooner sit almost the entirety of the drive in silence.

  In fact I was almost relieved when we finally pulled up and my door opened to a dozen cameras in my face, something that the Commissioner was clearly taken aback by. “What the Hell are all these people doing here!? Everybody back up!” he shouted as he pushed his way out of the car.

  “Sergeant Griegs!” the Commander roared over the journalists’ heads as he pulled on his helmet and indicated with an open palm that I should stay in my seat, “Sergeant! Get over here and clear some space!”

  It was hard to tell with all the bustling bodies, but I did faintly see flashes of white armour as Griegs barged his way to the Commander, “Sorry Commander, the second you arrived they broke away from the seating area, we couldn’t contain them without force.”

  “Then use force! It’s why we’re here! Everybody not back in their seats in the next fifteen seconds will be shot and arrested! One!”

  The journalists didn’t appear to care about the Commander’s threat, all vying for the opportunity to get a snap of me.

  That is, until the Commander drew his massive sidearm from his belt and fired four concussive shots into the air, “Three!”

  After that the crowd quickly dispersed, running like scared animals back to lines of white chairs arranged in front of the podium at the head of City Hall’s stairs.

  “Miss Redmond,” the Commander said, before sidestepping out of the way, “the people await.”

  I forced myself t
o smile then stepped out into the street, the journalists all sitting patiently about twenty feet from me and staring straight ahead. I didn’t like that the Commander had used threats of violence to make them submissive, but it was certainly more effective than shouting.

  The Commissioner and Commander guided me toward to podium, and I had to do everything in my power not to stare at the gorgeous structure that was City Hall, the curved glass reflecting what little sunlight peeked through the clouds.

  Once we were up the stairs the Commissioner took his place at my left side, and the Commander my right, the microphone staring at me judgingly from atop the plinth it was built in to.

  “Good afternoon,” I said awkwardly, fighting the urge to ask how everyone was doing, “today I wish to clear the air in regards to the events of yesterday, specifically my arrest.” I waited for things to be thrown at me, insults or tomatoes, I hadn’t quite made up my mind, but nothing like that happened.

  Instead the crowd continued to look up at me in fearful silence, even the cameramen didn’t dare look at us without the barrier of their camera’s lens.

  I cleared my throat and decided to start from the beginning of the whole situation, “Last Friday I won an interoffice championship, which gained me the reward of a new character, something that I’ve desperately needed so I can pay off my debt. Deciding to play through as this new character, I put my original primary character in the Arena as a bot.”

  “You say primary character,” a female voice asked from the crowd, “how many characters do you have?”

  I gulped, I’d really wanted to skirt around that and avoid the fact that I had so many, “Five, I inherited three from family members who passed away. Those characters are being used to help me pay off my family’s debt.”

  “So, would you say that the fact you had so much debt would’ve been one of the reasons you were a suspect?”