Soda Pop Soldier (33 page)

The spy has to be a ColaCorp soldier. That could be anyone, even RangerSix. The information used against us has been too situation-specific, often moment-by-moment, up-to-date, real-time info. It's not some ColaCorp flunky who has access to our preplanning. Whoever it is has to be in on our BattleChat. A live, professional player. Someone I consider a comrade. JollyBoy is still the obvious choice.

Sometimes the obvious choice is the only choice.

I ping Kiwi and wait. An hour later, he gets back to me.

“I want to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth.”

“You got it, mate. Always have and always will.”

“Are you a traitor?”

“What?”

“I mean, have you been selling us out to WonderSoft?”

Kiwi pauses, silent, hulking in the darkness of a room that looks like a tool shed.

“Frankly, Perfect . . .”

I wait. If he's lying, he'll point me at someone else. That's my lie detector. I'm no interrogator, no detective. I just find my game and run it.

“You know something, Question?” he says after a long pause, each of us staring across the Internet at the other. “Every time I get killed, it's 'cause I'm grateful.”

I watch him, waiting for the lie.

“You know what I do for a living, mate?” he asks. “I mean after Saturday night matches, you know what I go back to?” His face is angry, almost twisting with pain. Like he's holding something back. Something that takes all his strength to restrain. Something that's beating him day by day. Wearing him down.

I didn't know. I say nothing.

“I was a soldier. Got my legs blown off in Indonesia fightin' the Muzzies. When I got back, they gimme new legs. Best the service could offer. Free medical for the rest of my life. I'm not bitter about that. Lost my legs one balmy afternoon and never looked back. God save the King. But when I got back, they gave me a list of jobs I could do for the rest of my life. Nothing good. No mind. Cleaning offices in Sydney every night is just the same as being a metro tollbooth worker. But ya see, PerfectQuestion, I loved bein' a soldier, mate. Loved the formations and the parades and the medals. Loved my mates and my guns. But the service says you've got to have both legs to keep soldierin'. So they medically retired me, PerfectQuestion. Twenty-four years old and I'm retired for the rest of my life. So you know what I did? I didn't give up. I looked for another army that'd let me soldier. And I found one. I found an army that would let me fight for 'em. So I love ColaCorp. I love RangerSix. I'd die for them every night because I'm so grateful they let me be a soldier and pay me a wage so I don't have to stand in the metro at three
A
.
M
. while punks coming home from the clubs piss their lives away and write crap on the walls that the public lawyers say is freedom of speech and the college professors say is art. That's a waste of a life. ColaCorp pays me some money. Enough to come home and pay the utility bills on my da's old stead. It's not so much . . . But ColaCorp's given me more than they'll ever know. I'd fight for free, if they asked me to.”

Then he's silent, staring back at me across the connection with hard eyes.

“So ask me again, PerfectQuestion. You ask me again if I'm a traitor.”

I shake my head.

I don't need to.

“You're not the traitor, Kiwi,” I whisper. “I didn't think so. But there is one, and I had to make sure you were clear, before I asked for your help. So I need your help.”

“You got it, mate.” He doesn't even hesitate. I like that about Kiwi. He's always all in.

Chapter 26

W
hen I talk to RangerSix, I tell him my plan and who I think the traitor is. JollyBoy. He listens without saying a word. Then he says, “Son . . .” He pauses. “You got my blessing. I'll make the pitch to ColaCorp. I don't know if they'll go for it, but it's better than just sitting back and watching us get slaughtered by WonderSoft. Never did like that clown anyways.”

I know, or at least I have to believe, RangerSix isn't the traitor. To me he seems like the last samurai in the world. Maybe all of us have degrees of honor to some extent. But he's integrity through and through. If you cut him, he'd probably bleed integrity. Whatever that looked like. Some people you just know that about. He's one of them. Maybe the last one.

RiotGuurl. I don't think so. But also, I don't know for sure because I don't really know her. She's professional, competent, and good. And I like her, I think. That clouds things. But, in her defense, she's been shot down twice because of bad intel. Because of the traitor. Those are marks in her favor, reasons for trust.

Then there's the clown.

The clown being JollyBoy, who I text later and ask to set up an intel station at a highlighted coordinate on the grid map north of Song Hua Harbor.

“Oh what fun, PerfectQuestioney. A sneak attack right into the spleen of WonderSoft. Remember when we killed everyone at the tower?”

I did.

“That was fun, wasn't it,” says JollyBoy.

Good times, I agree and end the conversation.

RiotGuurl answers my next text immediately.

“Hey, boy.”

“Hey yourself,” I text. “Up for a bit of fun?”

“Depends.”

I write back, “At the briefing, I need you to ignore all the orders about a counterattack through the left flank, and an intel station JollyBoy's setting up. Okay?”

“All right . . . why would I do this?”

“Because I want you to pick up the troops that should be counterattacking and drop them in the center, where all the action's really going to be. It's gonna get real hot, so watch out.”

“I like it hot,” she writes back.

“Listen.” I decide to level with her and let her in on the plan. “I trust you. I think Jolly's been selling us out. This is our only chance to win this thing. Okay?”

“Did RangerSix buy off on this?” she asks after a moment.

“Yeah.”

“Okay then, I'm in.”

“Thanks.” I don't know what to write next.

What's appropriate?

Maybe the truth. “You're the best pilot I've ever played with, RiotGuurl. Before it all goes down, I just want you to know that and I'm sorry about trying to hit on you. My life's been weird and I was confusing respect with attraction.”

“It's cool, but what're you saying?” she writes back.

“I'm saying I respect your skills. Even if we lose our professional status tonight, I want you to know I think you're a professional, no matter what.”

“Thanks, PerfectQuestion. What's your real name?”

I stare at her text and all that it could possibly mean.

Names are personal.

And . . . what if she is the traitor after all?

“John Saxon.”

“It fits. Where are you?” she texts.

“That's not important.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe I've been rethinking . . . things.”

I wait.

“Maybe after the game, we can meet halfway from wherever you're at. Maybe we're even in the same city,” she writes.

I stare at the words on the screen until they start to blur.

“I'll tell you what,” I type, my index finger shaking as I punch the screen on my Petey. “Tell me where you are and I'll be there. That is, if you still want me to, after the match.”

She gives me an address in Rome. Italy.

An hour later, I log back into the Black. I have a scotch beforehand and set another up for the game. Now, as the screen descends through its intro of blood and screams, shadows and flames, I wait, feeling the warm hum of the liquor.

Courtyard of the Unworthy
bleeds across the screen.

I slew my camera and find the hulking Minotaur, Morgax, standing next to me, smiling. Shadows lengthen as a swollen moon rises in the east over the fading desert. Evil blackbirds come in sudden waves across the dead city, screeching murder, then they're gone. Before us, stone steps rise to meet the doors to the tower.

“So we get to the top, then what?” I ask Morgax.

“Rescue the child and end this abomination,” he says after a moment.

“Most people who play Black games like them.”

“I'm not most people,” says Morgax. The character voice software makes his speech gruff and snorty. “I'm a fan of the source material. I came to clean it up. Or at least that's what I told myself.”

“Clean it up?” I ask.

Over chat I can hear him sigh. His sigh comes out as a painful bullish snort. Then he says, “What's your real . . . forget it. Sorry about that; I'm not used to playing these kinds of games. Forget it. I don't need to know your real name. It's not important. Let's just say . . . I've been a fan of these books, the source material for this world, since I was kid. If I told you how much of a fan, well . . . then you might find out who I am. To put it another way, I teach a small lit course at a big university, among other courses, on this . . . this place. The World of Wastehavens.”

I stop him. “Enough. Don't say any more. Someone might be listening in on us and they could use that against you.” I move the Samurai up the steps to the door of the tower and start inspecting the lock.

“So you're a fan, and someone made a Black game out of your favorite book and you just had to play it?” I ask. “Except you didn't really know what a Black game was and now you're in over your head?” That's my guess, at least.

“No, I knew. We get mandatory classes in deviant behavior as part of our teaching credentials. Black games are considered highly deviant. Which they are.”

“So why are you here?” There seemed to be no visible locking mechanism I could toy with to get us into the tower. I try a few strikes with my bare hands against the door and am rewarded with solid wooden
thunks,
echoing beyond into an unseen empty space.

No one answers.

“Six months ago, I heard someone was going to let this world go live. Use it as source to run a Black game. I couldn't let it be sullied like that. So I entered. I thought there was a way to save it, and if I'm right, there might actually be.”

“Why would you do a thing like that? You could get busted. Reeducation sentence. You'd lose your license to teach.”

For a long moment Morgax says nothing. Our avatars watch the tower.

“I thought there could be a way to clean it up, or set it free,” he starts with a sudden burst. Then, “Or at least that's what I told myself. I was being overly optimistic, in hindsight. I had no idea what I was really getting into.” He's silent for a moment. Both our avatars stand before the tall lone door, the only entrance into the rising tower. The endgame.

“Then there's the other part of me,” he whispers. “The fan part. The truth is . . . I was dying to live inside this world. I've known about it for so long. Everyone knew the original writer had gone nuts and done something like this, but no one could find it. He'd never allowed any of the major gaming companies to develop a game based on his world. So this world . . . it's really special.”

I push on the door.

“I understand now, why I really did it,” he continues. “It's like your favorite show being made into a game. You have to play it. You can't just let it go, even though you know it'll never live up to the show. You can't. You've just got to taste it once. So I did . . . and it was better than I ever imagined it could be. It's so real . . . so . . . like the books in all the parts where it hasn't been turned into a strip club and a porn site. Why would they do that? This is a game. Games are supposed to be for children. They're supposed to be fun. What business do they have turning it into . . . putting that sick stuff into it?”

In-game it's twilight. Nothing moves in the gloaming. There is no sound other than the wooden sandals of the Samurai and the hooves of the Minotaur on the ancient stones at the foot of the tower.

“Worst part is, I knew Black games were bad,” continues Morgax. “I knew they were illegal. I knew it might cost me everything. Now I'm caught. I didn't realize what really went on in here. I knew it was bad, but I thought it was still just a game. These things could get me in a lot of trouble just by virtue of association. Whoever's running this game could use that against me. How could I defend myself? I could lose my position. My family . . .”

“They won't,” I counter, trying to calm him down. He's agitated. “Black runners know that's bad for business. Anonymity encourages participation. Once people start getting busted, outed, then people are gonna stop playing and find some new thrill somewhere else.”

“I hope you're right,” he mutters.

Near the ironbound door studs I finally find a small pop-up menu that opens a quick-click
Pushing
minigame. I try a few rapid clicks and nothing happens. I scan the other door in the same location and find the same minigame pop-up. That means two players are needed to open the doors to the tower. The programmers must've put that in to make people work together. I imagine they were counting on the eventual backstabbing that comes out of such forced alliances. More drama that way.

“All right, I think if we both push on the door, it might open. Be ready for what comes next.”

We lean our avatars against the door, find a submenu for
Push,
then slowly the rotten doors swing open on a dry, dusty grinding sound effect. Inside the tower's circumference, blue light filters down through spreading spiderwebs and broken stained glass set high along the rising inner walls of the tower.

The Marrow Spike.

“So if you're a fan, what do we face next?” I ask. “This place ever get covered in the book?”

“Books, and yeah. Wu the main character, which is who you're playing, ends the third book of the
Songs of Other Battles
trilogy at the top of this tower. It's been his quest for most of his entire life, though it's never really explained why in the series. You survived the Battle of Vezengom in which two great armies are completely annihilated. Then you journeyed into the Desert of Silence and arrived at this lost, fabled city buried beneath the desert sands. With the help of a young scholar turned skeleton centuries before your arrival, Sabboc, you survive a night in the city and best the curse that turns everyone, by dawn, into skeletons. You did that by making it to the top of the tower. But then you disappeared, and the book ends with a song sung by an Elven slave girl in the Grand Palace of the Cities of the East. The song implies that having sacrificed yourself, you were destroyed. In
The
Tale of Woe,
a book written much later, we find out that you entered the strange AfterWorld and helped defeat the Black Dragon that had tied all the timelines of every world into the Gordion knot. It's all a loop and it's a bit confusing, but it does make sense, eventually. If you know the whole story, that is.”