Erebos (41 page)

‘Tell me, Darleen,' he approached the subject cautiously. ‘You said that you're not playing any more. Do me a favour: tell me a few things you did when you were still part of it.'

She seemed a little unnerved. ‘But you said yourself that I should act as though the game never existed.'

Nick took another look around. ‘I only want you to talk about it, just this once. To me.' He heard people coming, took Darleen by the hand and led her into an empty classroom. He closed the door behind them and leaned against it.

‘What do you want to know?'

‘What orders you carried out, for example. Was there anything special about them?'

She thought about it, studying Nick out of the corner of her eye as if she wasn't sure it was safe to tell him such things.

‘Do you remember the stolen computers – the laptops?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘I was in on that. I kept a lookout. If someone came, I was supposed to raise the alarm by text message. But don't tell anyone about it, I'll deny it.'

Nick tried hard to see where this information fitted in. ‘Do you know what happened to the laptops?'

‘No. But I can guess. They were meant for the people who couldn't start playing the game because they didn't have their own computer. I think Aisha got one of them.'

That made sense, but it was a piece of the puzzle that wouldn't actually help Victor.

‘Anything else?'

‘God you're nosy.' She sighed. ‘Yes, I copied some documents that I fished out of a waste paper bin in Kensington Gardens. But don't ask me what it was exactly. Legal stuff, a whole stack of paper. I didn't understand a word of it.'

Nick would have given a lot to get a look at the ‘legal stuff'.

‘Anything else? Did you threaten anyone at any time, or . . . break anything?'

Now her gaze slid away. ‘No. But I know what you mean. No, I didn't. The rest of my orders were harmless. Writing an assignment for someone, buying a SIM card and leaving it in a specific place, that sort of thing.'

‘And why did you get kicked out?'

‘Because my idiotic mother blocked my internet access for three days. After that the messenger said I was of no further value to him. Isn't that a cheek? I could still howl with rage. As if that was my fault!'

‘Okay. Thanks,' said Nick. ‘You've been a big help, but I think you'd better go before one of the watchdogs sees us.'

She nodded. ‘Pretty crazy stuff, huh? Do you think we ever met each other in the game?'

Nick smiled. ‘I don't know. What was your name?'

At first she hesitated, then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Samira.'

‘Hey, then we do know each other! You were a cat woman, right? And you were there when I first started.'

‘Honest? So who were you?'

Some distant part of him ached when he thought of his other self in the past tense.

‘Sarius,' he answered. ‘I was Sarius.'

CHAPTER 27

The weekend had finally arrived. Along with an invitation from Victor. They were all going to stay the night in his studio, as he called it. ‘Gaming, chatting, drinking tea,' he said on the phone. ‘You have to come over. I've found out some amazing things!'

‘It's nice that you're getting out again,' Mum said, when he told her about his plans. ‘You've hardly moved from your desk lately.'

Nick set off with his sleeping bag and mat and an enormous supply of nibbles. He must have made a strange sight, looking around several times at each corner, each crossroad, to check that no-one was following him. He went an incredibly round-about way again on the Tube to shake off any unseen pursuers.

‘Welcome, my friend!' Victor opened the door to him and relieved him of his things. ‘I haven't had a pyjama party in ages! You'll say yes to a cup of tea, I hope, and hi to Emily?'

Emily was sitting in the same spot as last time. She looked up briefly as Nick came in, pointed apologetically to her laptop and turned back to the game. A red hiking pack was leant against the wall behind her. Was she going to stay the night too?

Next door, Speedy was sprawled on one of the lairy sofas with a girl whose hair was died jet black and shaved on one side.

‘Kate,' Speedy introduced her. ‘My woman.'

‘Nice to meet you.'

Kate smiled, revealing eyeteeth embellished with diamantes.

‘Your turn, Speedy,' Victor said. ‘And try not to flaunt your skills, okay?'

‘I'm not stupid, you know,' Speedy grumbled, and sat down at a different computer than last time.

‘It's necessary,' Victor explained, noticing Nick's look. ‘The first thing the program will definitely check is the IP address. If it recognises that, it won't even show you the teensiest fir tree from the opening sequence.'

So Nick's idea of borrowing Finn's laptop hadn't been so silly. ‘How did the graffiti operation go?'

‘Oh. Good, if you can call it that.' The mug Victor put on the table for Nick was shaped like a kraken obligingly clasping two of its tentacles to form a handle. ‘I found the note, went to the address, sprayed and didn't get caught.'

Victor cleared a few computer magazines out of the way and took out a photo: the wall of a building with the words ‘He who steals our dreams puts us to death' written on it in expert blue-black letters.

‘A quote from Confucius,' Victor explained. ‘The person who programmed Erebos is very fond of quotes.'

Nick must have looked confused, because Victor grinned. ‘Get used to the idea that Erebos didn't invent itself. Somebody out there wrote a source code, just like with any other program. Except that this one is a programming masterpiece. An incredibly brilliant thing.'

Nick could have sworn that Victor's eyes were damp.

‘Do you know how many years people have been trying to write a program that speaks and thinks like a person? Can you imagine what this development is worth? Millions, Nick! Billions. But the game is being served up to us gratis, like something you find in a box of cereal. Why?'

Nick had never looked at it from that angle before. From the beginning the game had always felt as if he was relating to a living being; he'd never thought about its financial value.

‘Because . . . it's trying to accomplish a goal?' he grasped Victor's question, and was rewarded with a radiant look.

‘Exactly! It's a tool, the most expensive, ingenious tool in the world. I metaphorically bow down before its creator in humility and worship.' He sipped his tea. ‘Someone who can pull off something like this doesn't make random allusions. So what is he saying to us – or rather to the unknown garage owner? “He who steals our dreams puts us to death.”'

‘That he wants to kill him? Or that the other person is threatening him with death?'

‘Exactly. It sounds like a warning to me. At any rate it's not just some random quote, and neither was it some random address.'

Victor was crumbling a biscuit, while Nick was almost bursting with impatience. ‘And? Who lives there?'

‘Well, that's not at all thrilling, unfortunately. An accountant, divorced, no children, middle management in a company that exports food. It's hard to imagine anything more run-of-the-mill. But of course he could be a complete monster in private.'

An accountant. That really wasn't exciting.

‘Did you find any of the matching pieces of the puzzle?' Victor asked.

‘I'm afraid not. I only found one ex-gamer who was willing to talk.' Nick reported on Darleen's orders – the computer theft, the copied documents and the SIM card. Victor made a note of it all. ‘Who knows – one day things may fall into place,' he said. ‘Let's turn our attention to the allusions that are hidden in the game. Maybe they will tell us more. How good are you at Art History?'

Uh-oh. Nick shook his head. ‘Sorry, you've got the wrong guy.'

‘Okay, fine. So we'll start with ornithology. What does Ortolan mean to you?'

‘That's the enemy the Erebos players are fighting,' Nick said, happy that he finally knew an answer.

‘Very true.' Victor twirled his moustache between his fingers; he looked like a magician who was about to conjure a rabbit out of his hat. ‘May I show you a picture of Ortolan?'

There was a picture? ‘Sure, I'd like to see it,' Nick said.

Victor fetched another laptop from next door. ‘This one is completely Erebos-free. That means we can use it to move around on the internet without the program noticing and giving us a rap on the knuckles.' He opened the lid. ‘Okay, now search for Ortolan,' he said.

Nick entered the word in Google. The first hit took him to Wikipedia, and he clicked on the link.

‘Well that's pretty stupid,' he declared.

Ortolan was simply a different name for the garden bunting, a songbird long considered a delicacy in France and Italy.

‘It's extremely confusing, hmm?' Victor chuckled. ‘And unfortunately I haven't found out what our Mr Programmer is trying to tell us. But I haven't the slightest doubt that he wants to tell us something. I've discovered something else, too; I'm positive that you'll like it.' Victor clapped his hands like a child in front of his birthday cake, put his skull-ringed fingers on the keyboard, and then changed his mind again. ‘No, first I want to ask you something. Were you at any of these sinister Arena fights? There's one on tomorrow night, and all the heroes are practically wetting their chainmail pants with excitement.'

Nick grinned. ‘Yeah, I took part in one Arena fight. Unfortunately I wasn't around for the second. It's pretty exciting. You'll see.'

‘Excellent. And I suppose you have to register for them, hmm? With whom, pray tell?'

There was no question about it – Victor loved puzzles.

‘The second time it was right in the Arena, with the master of ceremonies. The first time it was with some soldier in Atropos's Tavern.'

Victor's grin gave way to an expression of comic disbelief. ‘Did you say Atropos?'

‘Yes. So?'

‘Where will it all end?' Victor cried in feigned despair. ‘Do children learn nothing at all in school these days? At least tell me whether you noticed anything unusual about this master of ceremonies.'

‘He didn't fit in with the game. He didn't look like the other figures; he was . . . wrong, somehow. I always called him “big Goggle-Eyes”.'

Victor was most amused. ‘Terrific – very appropriate. But didn't Goggle-Eyes remind you of anything?' He opened his own eyes wide and tried to imitate the facial expression.

‘No. Sorry.'

‘Look at this.'

Victor typed a URL into the browser, and the home page of the Vatican Museum opened. Two more clicks, then he turned the laptop round so Nick could see the screen better.

‘There's your Goggle-Eyes. Painted by Michelangelo himself.'

It was a few moments before Nick could make head or tail of it. What Victor was showing him was a gigantic painting teeming with hundreds of figures. Jesus and Mary were in the middle, and all around them half-naked people sat or stood on various clouds. Further down a couple of angels were blowing their trumpets, and other angels were pulling people from the ground towards heaven. At the bottom edge there were figures writhing in the mud, and then, to the right of the centre . . . there he was. The master of ceremonies, exactly as Nick knew him from Erebos. Naked except for the loincloth, with the strange tufts of hair on his head and his long stick, which he was swinging as if he wanted to hit the people who sat in his boat.

‘Yes, that's him,' Nick yelled excitedly.

‘And do you know his name too?'

‘No.'

Victor sat up straight and put on a solemn face.

‘That's Charon. The ferryman, who, in Greek mythology, carries the dead in his boat over the river Styx to the realm of death.'

Nick took a closer look at the picture and couldn't help shivering. Here Charon seemed to be
beating
the dead across the river.

‘Your Goggle-Eyes's parents probably also deserve a mention: Charon is the son of Nyx, the goddess of the night . . . and of Erebos.'

Nick's head was spinning. ‘And what does it all mean?'

‘Hard to say. But perhaps we'll get warmer if we study the title of Michelangelo's masterpiece. Take a look!' He pointed the cursor at the words underneath the photo.

Michelangelo Buonarotti

The Last Judgement

Sistine Chapel

‘At the Last Judgement God separates the righteous from the damned,' said Victor. ‘It's not a pretty sight. And I wonder whether the game isn't doing something similar. Making a selection. Why else would it be so ruthless about eliminating everyone who fails at their tasks?'

‘Isn't that a bit crazy?'

With a few clicks Victor enlarged the picture to the point where they could see Charon's facial features in detail. ‘Crazy maybe. But above all it's meticulous, planned down to the last detail. What was it you said before? The shop where you registered for the punch-up in the Arena was called Atropos's Tavern?'

‘Actually it was called The Final Cut,' Nick explained.

‘Oh, my boy, my poor blind boy!' Victor cried theatrically and typed again. ‘Look at this: Atropos is one of the three Moirai, the Greek goddesses of fate. She is the oldest and the least agreeable; in fact it's her task to cut through humans' life threads. The final cut.' Victor closed the laptop with a sigh. ‘The game gives us very clear hints. The programmer has a particular weakness for Greek mythology. That's the first thing. Each of the symbols he uses is connected with disaster and death. That's the second. Combine it with the brilliance of the program and its addictiveness – and . . . oh my. I'd be less worried if I were sitting on a barrel of dynamite.'

Victor didn't actually look worried though; he looked extremely satisfied. He topped up his cup again and leaned back.