“Finding out the speed of the Nexus, and the quantum networking and how it responds to it,” he answered. “Those boots hurt, by the way. Did you specifically think of steel-toed ones so they’d hurt more? Okay, okay. I was looking to see how well the Nexus performs under duress, massive amounts of data transfer, stuff like that. We were looking for signs of the Path already being established but...”
“Why would that matter with The Warp?” she asked, confused.
“The quantum net is more than just a faster internet,” he groaned as he pushed himself up on his elbows. He looked at her askance. “There’s something new coming, and you aren’t going to be ready. Nobody will be ready, but you must be. Why can’t you see this?”
“What I see is a murderer,” Tori whispered and pointed the borrowed handgun directly at Gargoyle. “I see a pathetic excuse for a human being.”
“If you knew the Path, then you’d know I’m not…like you.”
“What’s the path?” she asked. “You said that before. What is it?”
“Your world is going to change,” he said in a resigned voice. “You’re already on the Path. There’s no stopping what is to come.”
“What do you mean?” she repeated. He didn’t answer her. She scowled and questioned him again.
“Just get it over with.”
“Two years ago, you stole from people, and lives were lost because of you,” Tori murmured in a low tone before she shot him once in each knee. The terrorist cried out in pain. Tori tilted her head ever so slightly and frowned. “And if what you’re saying is true, then my world is going to change. I will find out what you’re talking about, this ‘path’ you keep mentioning. One way or the other. You know…they say mercy is the sign of a great man. But since I’m no man, you’ll get no mercy from me.”
She fired one more time, and Gargoyle died. His body immediately depixelated, leaving Tori alone within the Nexus. She sighed and tossed the weapon aside. While the pistol was nice, she had no need for it. She already had dozens like it in her inventory. However, there was no denying that using his own coded handgun against him wasn’t at least a little satisfying.
She turned away. While the depixelation process was neat and clean, oftentimes the game glitched and would leave remains behind. It never seemed to hurt the person but made for some really disturbing scenes sometimes. Like a horror movie gone bad and then turned into a splatter house film, she recalled Dylan saying.
She stared out into the Nexus. She could feel it around her, moving in time within the accelerated pace at which The Warp ran. There was definitely a glitch within the Nexus, but she was unable to identify the source. She activated her digital simulator and, using only the keyboard function, accessed the primary .exe programs within the system. Much like what she’d done in Kadashter to track down the Gêmeo code, she was able to find two that looked interesting, and went deeper into the lines of code. She pulled apart the code with ease as she spliced it on the fly, recreating the glitch in a simulated environment.
Tori watched as the glitch formed on its own and seemed to continue to fuel itself from some unknown means. She frowned and tugged at the code, exploring different lines sequentially and randomly at the same time. She could see the power flow after doing this, so she followed the line. A thin strand, almost imperceptible on a basic level, linked all the random lines together. Curious, she unwound it and laid it out.
Her eyes widened. Somehow, for some reason, she could see into everything. The power came not from within The Warp but from the universe itself. She felt her breath catch in her throat as a cold lump formed in the pit of her stomach. She knew now why Gargoyle had worked with the Rogues to take down Crisis, why Jade and others had been affected as they had. She understood where humanity lay on the galactic scale, and what was to come.
The thin, glowing tendril which led to the center of the universe was clear before her. It was ancient, yet at the same time new. It served a purpose, one which humanity was meant to play a role upon. It was a path—no, she corrected herself forcefully. It’s the Path. This is what Gargoyle was talking about!
She saw the universe as it was, and as it was to be. Stars were born, lived, and died as she watched. Black holes formed, and life was born on planets beyond the scope of known space. Ancient beings using technology beyond her grasp and primitive creatures using sticks and stones flashed before her eyes. This was what he’d meant when he was babbling, she realized. This is the universe as it was, has been, and will be.
The Nexus was being powered on a quantum level from outside the known universe and there was nothing Tori, or anyone for that matter, could do about it. The Nexus was just a launch point for a path of some sort, the foundation for building blocks which would lead somewhere. It wouldn’t be built overnight, but neither would it take a long time to construct. The path was clear and would only grow stronger. One day soon humanity would use the path and travel among the stars as gods.
Horror suddenly dawned on her as she realized, like all paths, this one was meant to go two ways—away from Earth, and toward it. Everything Gargoyle had told her clicked into place and she realized just what he was.
“Oh. My. God.”
* * *
That damnable girl!
Gargoyle shook off the muzzy-headed feeling he always had whenever he left the Nexus. It was difficult for him at times to adjust to the slowness of reality for the first few moments afterward. Being forced out due to a ban from his dying made it all much worse. He’d been beaten now, twice, because of a single little girl.
He licked his dry lips. He’d been in the Nexus for almost too long, and his body screamed for food and drink. His bladder hurt painfully, and he really needed to go. He had plenty to eat nearby; water, however, was another story. He doubted he had the time to do anything about either at the moment. Later, perhaps…
He ruthlessly quelled the need for food and drink. They were so close to initiating Phase Three; he could afford to skip a meal or two. Or even five. What couldn’t be allowed was for the rest of them to go into the Nexus completely blind. They had to know there would be stiff resistance. Due to his current location and how long it’d take him to return to the staging area, he decided to send a quick message instead of waiting.
Mission partially successful. Resistance is strong. The first steps of the Path have been laid. The Vanguard is loyal.
Gargoyle looked at the sleeping giant lying at his feet. The golden armor had faded and revealed him to be a young man. He recognized the younger male from Crisis and paused, as an idea formed. While he hadn’t anticipated bringing anyone through the Path just yet, he also guessed some convincing might be in order. Taking the young man had been a spur of the moment thing, but now he realized just how valuable the kidnapped boy truly was.
He’d come in handy if nobody believed him when he gave his report. He figured the only way he could convince them of the dangers they faced was to bring back a living specimen. He had hopes his superiors would understand and not execute him upon his arrival. If they did, then they were sabotaging their own war effort just to punish him.
Mollified by the thought, he slipped into the quantum net and disappeared, the boy along with him.
* * * * *
Chapter 19
Tori knew something had gone dreadfully wrong the moment she exited The Warp.
The nurses were scrambling about anxiously, arguing among themselves as they moved to unhook the other Moderators from their neural interface devices. Michael and Tyler, who were already out, were standing off to the side, their normally-cheerful faces pale and drawn as they stared blankly ahead. Tori spotted two members of Disney security standing nearby and quickly approached.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
The taller one mopped his bald head with the sleeve of his uniform and looked at her. His eyes were wide and frightened, and it looked to her like he’d seen a ghost.
“The kid disappeared,” the guard whispered. “He j
ust up and disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” She looked at the shorter guard. She jerked a thumb at his partner. “What’s he talking about?”
“The boy was in his chair, in The Warp I assume, and he suddenly spasmed and vanished,” the other man stated. “Poof! Gone just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Tori glanced over to where the two had been staring. The NID was sitting on the empty chair, tilted on its side with the WiFi light still blinking. The second green light next to it told her the device was still connected to The Warp. She moved closer to get a better look, not believing her eyes.
Every gamer knew when a player was out of The Warp the NID quit linking to it. It was another new safety feature applied after the Crisis incident, though the popularity of the device had definitely waned after the terrorist’s attack. For the most hardcore of gamers, though, it was still the best way to play the games within The Warp. The graphics, the server delay and lag, all of it was better than anything else offered. There was no true alternative when it came to gameplay quality.
For her to see a “connected” indicator on a device not being worn by a gamer terrified her to no end.
“That new kid just up and disappeared,” the first guard repeatedly. Needlessly so, in her opinion. Something had gone wrong, and she was determined to figure out just what had happened. She looked back over at Tyler.
“What. Happened?” She asked through clenched teeth.
“Dylan…he was just sitting there, in the game, when he kinda spasmed, like a seizure, you know?” Tyler said in a low, nervous tone as he shifted his gaze to stare at the floor. “There was a strange noise, and he disappeared.”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” Tori demanded.
“Look, he just…I don’t know!” Tyler threw his hands into the air with a strangled cry. “I don’t understand what happened! I don’t even know what happened!”
“Tori…” Michael’s voice trailed off as he finally looked away from the chair. “Something took Dylan.”
“That’s…” she almost said “impossible”, but stopped herself as she recalled what she’d seen while in The Warp mere minutes before. She’d seen something, like a path, leading out into the great unknown. She’d seen so much, the beginning and the end, a realm without time or meaning. Am I limiting myself because my brain still thinks we’re all alone in the universe? she wondered. Even after all I’ve seen?
Tori looked around. There was a small group of Moderators and gamers gathered in the area, all looking expectantly at her. She nodded to herself. There was no way for her to deny it any longer. The Warp was her game, and everyone in the room looked to her for leadership. As much as she’d never wanted to admit it, deep down she knew she was expected to guide them. She’d always taken a backseat to more dominant personalities, but they could afford that no longer. Something terrifying was coming, and humanity didn’t have long to prepare. Her friends and family needed her.
“Go home, get ready,” she told them. They all looked at her, the confusion clearly evident upon their faces.
“For what?” Stacey finally asked.
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
* * *
The flight from Orlando to Chicago took less than three hours. Tori strongly considered chartering a private plane, before she realized it was both a waste of money and time, aside from the fact that she was underage and unable to legally hire a plane. Besides which, the time difference was merely fifteen minutes. Passenger planes, specifically large jumbo airliners filled with paying customers, still received preferential treatment over smaller ones, so she’d used her card and booked her flight.
She slumped into the comfortable seat in first class and closed her eyes. Dylan was still in the forefront of her mind as the plane began to taxi. She refused to believe he was hurt, just…taken. Similar to what the Rogues had done to them previously. She was pressed into the seat as the jet began to roll down the runaway and take off. She felt a small sense of unease as she left Orlando—and maybe Dylan—behind.
She took the time during the flight to type up what she could recall from her time within The Warp, from the assault on Ganymede to Alex’s ambush in Kadashter. The tablet connected automatically to the flight’s WiFi, which enabled her to save it remotely on her laptop back at school. It also uploaded a copy to her internet vault, where everything she’d ever written online was stored. It was a fail-safe of hers in case her laptop or tablet ever went missing.
She chewed on her bottom lip, oblivious to the world around her, as she worked her way through the various things Gargoyle had mentioned during their encounters within The Warp. She highlighted “Path” every time she could remember him mentioning it, as well as his random comments about not being like her. She could see the entire puzzle before her, but the most important part was still scattered about in pieces.
What was she missing? It drove her nuts trying to see something that should’ve been plain as day, yet it remained invisible to her. It was teasing her, taunting in a way that made her angrier than anything else. She despised problems that weren’t clear and concise. Trick word problems in algebra always made her want to smack her head onto the desk.
She looked back at her notes on the tablet and frowned. She circled the main issue with her stylus—Gargoyle—and then drew a second circle around the Nexus issue. She then connected them with a straight line. Next, she looked at the Path and tied it to both the Nexus and Gargoyle. She set the pencil down and stared at the triangle she’d formed. She then placed a giant question mark in the center of it.
“This is pointless,” she muttered and began to doodle on the edge of the screen as she zoned out, her mind focusing on other problems while her eyes devoured everything she’d written on the tablet’s surface. “Stupid girl. You always think you know the answer and then rush off to fix it. You don’t know anything.”
Tori shook her head and sighed. She hated when she was too hard on herself. It’d been bad before Crisis, thanks to lingering insecurities because of her mother’s death. It’d only grown worse since then, although the counseling was helping. It was still difficult to believe she’d managed to keep it together for as long as she had. If only she could just stay strong and see it through to the end…
The final piece of the puzzle suddenly snapped into place.
Her eyes refocused on the triangle, and Tori quickly wiped away the question mark which had lingered in the center and added a single word. Then she circled that word and connected all three original points to it with lines. It all made sense, once she could see it on her tablet. It was as plain as day.
Now if she could only convince everyone else that the world was about to end.
* * *
It took her a little over thirty minutes to get from O’Hare International Airport to WarpSoft’s headquarters in downtown Chicago. Her arrival at the building was met with little fanfare. Security, already aware of her impending arrival, had made certain she was brought in through the underground parking structure before taking the elevator all the way up near the top. She stepped out and was greeted by many familiar faces.
The first person she saw she embraced tightly and buried her face in his chest. She closed her eyes and squeezed as she hugged her father for the first time in months.
“Piglet,” Rodney Adams whispered into her ear as he held her. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Daddy,” she replied and let go. She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, but how did you know to come?”
“Leo called me after they found nothing wrong in Utah,” he explained as he looked at the others gathered in the meeting room. “Asked me to do some digging on individuals from the European side of things. Chelsea’s better at that than I am, so she made some contacts at Interpol, and they helped us do some digging. I was actually going to swing by Orlando tomorrow to see you, until I heard you were coming here, so I figured I’d meet you here and give my
kid a hug.” His face grew winsome as he looked at her. “You’ve grown up on me.”
“Daaaaaaad,” she almost whined. She then spotted Chelsea hiding partially behind her father and rushed to give her new stepmom a hug as well. “Hey, Chelsea.”
“Hi!” the Englishwoman was all smiles. Both had been shocked to discover they actually liked one another. It’d taken a few months after the Crisis incident for them to grow comfortable with one another, but Tori now viewed Chelsea as a surrogate mother. “Good job down there.”
“No,” Tori shook her head as she released the hug. “I screwed up. I screwed up bad.”
“Tori,” Leo Champion said as he walked into the waiting room. He moved to the large table which was set up in the center of the room and gave her a strange look. “While I’m perfectly okay with you taking First Class on the company dime, why did you fly back to Chicago? You could’ve called, email, texted…”
“We can’t trust the security of the systems anymore,” she replied.
“Our security here is top notch,” Leo stated before he frowned. “Well, I take it back. Everything can be hacked eventually.”
“Mr. Champion,” Tori addressed her boss formally as she looked around the room. They all were staring at her now, their attention undivided. Tori was a polite young lady, but she rarely called anybody by their last name. She continued. “With all due respect, sir, Gargoyle owns every single system in the world.”
“Bloody hell!” Leo spat. “That’s impossible!”
“It’s true,” Tori said as she whipped out her tablet and looked over her notes. “I figured it out. It’s…well, it’s complicated, but I think I know what he’s doing, and what’s coming next.”
“All right. Let’s hear it,” Leo said.
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