Raine VS The End of the World (27 page)

“Very well,” Hoshua continued. “It sounds like you’ve already got a plan of action. Let’s hear it.”

“It is a bit rough, sir. I imagine we’ll need two teams. Team one will divide and micro-manage MG’s duties in the
‘Verse
, while Team two works on purifying the poor girl. Sir, I gather you’ve got your hands full refining the HDP integration.”

Dr. Hoshua cleared his throat. “Naturally. I’m troubleshooting this grand protocol thing for the Joint Chiefs. Don’t expect it’ll be needed as long as Beech and Macleod are airborne, but orders are orders. Keep this in mind: should the
Metaverse
suffer a hiccup, our troops will be relying on the Overseer alone. Then we can kiss goodbye to our monthly bonus. Just… be careful. I wish my department had the time or manpower to help you out with this, but I must decline. If Miss Guggell is to be laid up for a spell, our job will already be greatly exacerbated.”

Henry suppressed a grin, turning it into a concerned grimace: the ‘correct’ response.

“You’d be a great help, but I understand, sir. Since I know you wouldn’t trust my green hands on Miss Guggell, I’ll take head of
Avidya
security with Dr. Karuishi here. Frankie will lead team two. We’ll each pick ten staff members, but for obvious reasons, none of this can leave the
Avidya
group.”

Ayumi and Francesco nodded their consent, then held up their tablets and slotted in their personal keys. Reluctantly, Alphonse followed suit. Henry keyed into the
Nexus’
Intranet mainframe with his Holo-Lens and initiated the AI swap procedure.

“This’ll take just a few minutes,” Henry reassured them. “We get to work immediately after lunch. Leave no stone unturned, and all that.”

Dr. Karuishi laughed out loud as Henry tickled under her feet. Francesco rolled his eyes and broke the tension with a cough. The swap completed; Miss Guggell had been replaced by the EDC’s near-identical replica, which boasted a particularly gaping security hole.

“Alrighty, then. Al, let’s see if there’s any short ribs left,” Zee said, clapping his colleague on the back.

“I’m more of a pulled pork guy myself,” Hoshua replied.

The Developers stood in unison and filed out of the protected conference room.

Once he and Ayumi were alone, Henry’s shoulders finally relaxed.

“You’re doing very well,” she told him. “Just ran my snooping daemon. If it can find a way into MG’s databanks, we’ll have the Overseer’s ciphers fully cracked within the day.”

The man managed a bumbling nod. “Yes… we’re nearly t-there…”

“You okay?” She spun him to a sudden stop and they faced one another eye to eye. Henry tried to match his thundering pulse to the rhythm of the soft hands now gently tracing his palms. “Your heart’s beating like crazy.”

“I feel like I could run a marathon. But logically, I’m not as afraid as I should be. Maybe it’s ‘coz you’ve got my back.”

Ayumi giggled to release the tension. “Don’t you dare let your guard down for anyone other than me. I’m the jealous type, you know.”

She gave his hand a squeeze. Side by side, they headed back to the
Nexus
.

∞

Morning came and Raine was surprisingly rested.

“Did you sleep well, too, Chance?”

The cat nodded, and then looked at her bag.

“Hmm? Oh, you want to go inside?”

He nodded, and Raine complied. It was probably for the best; his distinctive coat, even in grayscale, was a dead giveaway.
It’s like he knows I want to keep a low profile. Smart kitty. Almost
too
smart.

A gentle song wove its way to her ears, bringing with it a relieving wave of energy. She fluttered to the faint chime of the music box like a moth to a solitary dancing flame. It took her to the back room, where an elderly woman sat by a holographic fireplace, patching up a doll’s dress with intricate care. She turned around slowly and ominously.

“Ah, the chosen one,” she said in a thick Korean accent. “Your snoring is powerful enough to wake the dead. Let us hope your gaming prowess is on the level.”

“Pardon me?”

“They said you would be the one to save us,” she replied. “The beeping one has desecrated our humble resort town for many moons.”

Now Raine understood. “Let me guess. Is this some lousy side quest?”

“You do not seem eager to fulfill your destiny,” the lady observed.

“No offense, ma’am. I’ve been called a ‘chosen one’ before. It didn’t end well.”

“You must be thinking of another quest. This is the first time we have met.”

“I… see,” she replied, though she really didn’t. “Miss…”

“Zoot. Mrs.”

“Mrs. Zoot, I’ve never exactly saved an entire town before. And it might be better if nobody knows I’m here.”

“If you’re worried about distractions and hecklers, let me assure you: should you so choose, as soon as you wear the Chosen One’s official attire, your true identity can be masked.”

Another mask. Kind of scary to think I might get used to this anonymity thing.

“Cool. Sounds like I’ve got nothing to lose. But what’s in it for me?”

“It is said that whosoever completes this quest will be given unlimited power.”

Unlimited power. Is this my chance to make things right? I don’t believe it, but if there’s a possibility whatever it is might help me save Gerrit…

“Okay, I’m intrigued, but I still don’t know if I’m qualified. I’m rather new here, Mrs. Zoot.”

The woman handed Raine the doll. It bore a striking resemblance to herself. “Experience matters not, beyond the minimum level requirements. Looks like you’ve made the grade, if just barely. Still, no being has ever beaten this quest, not in the recorded, deleted, or even imagined history of the
Metaverse
. To defeat the beeping one requires great cunning and unparalleled reflexes.”

Raine studied the doll’s determined expression. She had both of those things in spades, and she never walked away from a gaming throw-down.

“Word. I’ll give it a shot,” she responded nonchalantly.

Before she knew it, the antique shop owner had risen, dressed Raine in a long, itchy, hooded robe, and led her before a dynamic water fountain in the midst of the town. All in view stopped to stare.

Sitting cross-legged on a large rock throne was a roughly six-foot-tall digital stopwatch. It clearly belonged in a cartoon, with large eyes and a permanently smug mouth decorating its face. The Stopwatch munched on a car battery, regarding Raine with great interest as shackled children fanned it with palm leaves.

“Listen up, foul beast!” the elderly woman bellowed with all her power. “Listen, brothers and sisters, for I bring before you one of our own, a human, a magician of great strength, who will deliver us in this dark hour!”

By now quite a crowd had gathered.

So much for staying unnoticed
, Raine thought.

“Yes! Before me, at last, stands The Chosen One!”

There was much rejoicing. Praises were hollered. Little children cried. Raine became very conscious of the fact that her back was drenched in sweat.

A sudden, deafening BEEP interrupted the celebration. Raine almost jumped in shock; the Stopwatch held the note for a good ten seconds. When it had at last ceased the unbearable sound, most of the village was on the ground. Some were curled up in fetal positions. Children shook in abject fear. Silence had reclaimed the square.

Raine didn’t seem nearly as physically affected by the noise. She stepped up to the throne.

“I challenge you to a duel,” she said, as Mrs. Zoot had instructed.

The crowd erupted into applause again. The Stopwatch sneered and crossed over its other leg.

The townspeople wheeled out two enormous arcade cabinets. When Raine caught a glimpse of them, she beamed.

Super BlastBoy II.

This was fate. Nothing was going to stop her now.

The cabinets were set up back to back atop a central stage that appeared on command within a cordoned-off area. Raine was escorted along the carpet floor. She took a seat on the barstool and studied the new instructions. The controls seemed identical to the first game, with a few new items and enemy types thrown in for good measure. Advanced 16-bit graphics played the intro, displayed on a genuine cathode ray TV, a gloriously familiar sight to the girl. The remixed title music kicked in.

As Raine did her homework, a portly judge stood before the people and read from a scroll the terms and conditions of the game.

“It is decreed that there shall be a practice run of forty-five minutes, following which, the match proper will begin, wherein The Chosen One and the---”

“Yo, Beefeater! My bro’s got a suggestion!” a punkish teen boy’s voice called out loudly from the front.

The announcer addressed the sparkling child, a stark contrast to his older brother. “What is it, Casey?”

“I believe we should address the Chosen One by her true name.”

There was some murmuring. Raine looked from the child to the official, unsure of what to do. The judge at last walked up to her, tipped his hat, and bowed.

“We humbly request to know your name, O Chosen One.”

She thought of her one-time Californian pen pal. Hopefully she wouldn’t mind Raine borrowing her name.

“Elise,” she gulped, not wanting to divulge her identity. “Just Elise.”

“Thank you, Elise, O Chosen One,” the people intoned in zombified unison, reading from a teleprompter above the two machines.

“To say your name is truly an honor,” said the judge, returning to his pedestal with a cough to silence the ecstatic crowd.

“After the practice run, The Chosen One, namely Elise, and the Beeping One, whose true name remains… unknown, will be competing for the high score in a cooperative game of
Super BlastBoy II
. The one with the highest score after both players
game over
shall be crowned victor and given stewardship over the city. Practice run begins now.”

Raine regulated her breathing, psyching herself up.
It’s time to open up a can of whoop-ass.

A whistle sounded out and the game began.

Zoot studied her progress carefully. Elise didn’t seem to have memorized the levels. She faltered at first, but was quick to learn. In the early shooter stages she soon developed the particularly useful strategy of trailing the Stopwatch’s movements.

Within a half hour, it looked as if she had fully grasped the game. They’d reached the last level of their second run when the judge bade them to reset their cabinets, and none too late. The challenger was down to her final life.

The girl needed a breather during the intermission; she practically inhaled a bottle of root beer as if it were the last one on Earth. The outspoken teen in the front put his visor’s live feed of the event up on the Net. Thousands of spectators complained loudly about ongoing Network maintenance, which kept the sleepy town’s entrances and exits sealed.

When the battle proper began, Zoot leaned back with the other event planners against the large barricade erected to keep the unruly crowd from crushing the two competitors, whose exponentially multiplying scores were neck in neck.

The showdown continued for hours.

Zoot had fallen asleep thrice, and thrice been awakened by gasps from the crowd. Elise and The Beeping One were on their miraculous ninth play-through. As the speed increased on each subsequent run, the old cabinets lagged behind. The Stopwatch’s movements were, as always, cold, calculated and lifeless. Elise, on the other hand, astonished the crowd with her intense passion and eye for craftiness.

The hidden areas of her brain slowing time and seemingly handing over control of her motor reflexes to a raw, bestial inner power source, Raine danced figure eights in that mythical place where all gamers yearn to be. She lost herself in the zone.

Within the next play-through, Raine overtook the Stopwatch. Now that she’d memorized the levels it was a simple matter of going through the motions, missing power-ups in order to increase chain-combos, blasting segments that left the Stopwatch open to fire. Its gameplay was technically efficient, but its adaptive learning was limited. Whatever algorithms were put in place to modify its AI were no match for Raine’s reflexes, unpredictable style, and complete mastery of the original title.

The music was completely in sync with her playing, the bass her metronome.

She had completely forgotten about her ego, her burning questions, her obsession with Super BlastBoy’s promise, Agnes’ doubting words, her attachment to video games; even Gerrit and the question of his relation to her unexplained memories faded. Her focus and speed were gifts beyond comprehension, her skill so fluid and perfect that only a fraction of the technique behind it was apparent to those standing agape in awe.

At long last it was time for the game to come to an end.

Zoot was shaking. After a long bout of slowdown suddenly reverted back into real-time during the final level’s mid-boss, both Elise and the Stopwatch were down to one life. While they were neck-and-neck during the seventh run, the challenger’s relentless chain multiplier boosted her up to four billion points, with her opponent merely fifty million points behind.