Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds (3 page)

He sent a text to Mitchel with his name and asked what was going on with the early access event.

His phone beeped almost immediately.

Mitchel: wait, what? really?

“What? Why?” Mr. Steven’s voice grew louder than the rest of the conversation out front.

Toby leaned toward the door again. What was going on out there?

Mr. Stevens sighed. “Toby, could you come out here?”

Ugh. Special order. He hopped up and wandered for the door to the front room. He hated special orders. Recalibrate all the damned machines, hopefully they had enough ink or he’d have to run and get more and…

There were only two people out front with Mr. Stevens. A pretty young woman with unnaturally red hair and a police officer in full uniform.

Toby stepped up beside Mr. Stevens. “So… you guys need a banner or something? I wanna guess bowling team.”

The side of the young woman’s mouth turned up slightly, but the officer was having none of it. “Tobias Morant?”

Toby nodded. “Uh-huh?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”

“Uhhh…” Well that was going to throw a wrench into his plans for the evening. And the foreseeable future. “Why?”

Mr. Stevens turned his eyes away from the officer. “He says you saw a mugging last night. I tried to tell him you were here most of the night, but he insists it was you. Something about security camera footage.”

“Uh-huh.” Toby raised an eyebrow at the cop. He had gone straight home and been bashing his head against the Proving Grounds installer until he finally gave up at 2 a.m. and got a few hours sleep before bashing his head against it again.

Of course, since he was the only one present it would be hard to prove that.

The young woman laid a badge on the counter.

It said her name was Claire Miles, and she worked at Brave New World Entertainment. “My name is Claire, Mr.
Tobin
. We’ve got samples from the scene, and we’re testing the
iron
in his
blood
, but we need your help.” Her eyes turned to the cop. “For a proper identification.”

“Uh-huh.” There was no way in hell she had randomly emphasized those words, or called him “Tobin” instead of Toby or Tobias.

She knew.

But what did that mean? And why was she being so cagey about it?

Mr. Stevens balked. “I watch a lot of cop shows. I’ve never heard of testing blood’s iron content. What’s the point of that?”

Toby nodded to Claire. “No, it’s okay. I’ll go.” He gave a cop a nod as well. “Gotta do my civic duty.”

The cop turned back to Mr. Stevens. “He may be under protective custody for a few days. I trust you can manage?”

Mr. Stevens rolled his eyes. “I could close and be fine for a few days.” He patted Toby on the shoulder. “If there’s any trouble, you call me. I’ll be there with bells on.”

“There shouldn’t be any trouble. He’s just a witness.”

“Wait till he says something stupid. Then there will be trouble. Always trouble with that mouth of his.”

Toby smiled. “Your confidence in me is overwhelming, sir.”

“See? Just like that.” Mr. Stevens shook his head. “Alright, don’t worry, I’ll see that the orders get filled.”

“Five and six are still printing. Those were the last in line.”

“Yes, yes.” Mr. Stevens nodded.

Toby waved to the back room. “Need to get my things.”

The cop nodded. “Make it quick.”

Claire retrieved her badge. “Time
is
a factor.”

He retrieved his phone and his jacket from the back. He paused as he looked at the screen.

Rumor had it Brave New World were the ones setting up the force in defense of Tobin Ironblood. That added an air of validity to the whole thing. The company that made the game was on the opposite side to where the players had been assigned, and yet players were defecting to their side anyway.

Weird. But he had the feeling that Claire knew more.

And he had questions.

He closed the browser and returned the workstation to proper order. He didn’t need to confuse Mr. Stevens with multiple windows.

Claire and the cop were waiting as he wandered back out and shoved his arms into his coat. “My bike is in the back. That okay with you Mr. Stevens?”

The old man nodded. “I’ll bring it in.”

“Cool. I call shotgun.”

“No.” The cop held the door open. The bell rang.

“But I
called
it.”

“And I said ‘no.’ ”

“You called no?”

“I can see what your boss was talking about.”

Claire walked out behind Toby. “You can’t call shotgun until you see the car anyway. What kind of bush league does your method fly in?”

“No one has ever complained before.”

“Bush league.” She shook her head. “Also shotgun.”

“Hey hey hey. I called it first.”

“But not in sight of the car.”

The cop nodded. “Bush league.”

Toby grumbled as the cop opened the back door of the patrol car. “I just want it on the record that I called shotgun, and the system has let me down.”

“Noted.”

Claire waved at Toby. “Scoot over.”

Toby narrowed his eyes. “Why? You called shotgun under the Official Shotgun Calling Association of America rules.”

“
Scoot.
”

Toby moved over and Clair climbed into the back beside him. The cop closed the door and walked around the car.

“Don’t worry, it’s a nice car. None of the usual fuss with the back seat being trashed. This one is brand new. And besides,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, “we need to talk.”

He nodded. “Gotta say, confused as hell. Why am I public enemy number one in your game? All I did was log in.”

She frowned. “No fault of your own. That scene you got dropped into? Bad business. We’re not a hundred percent, but we think that guy that brought you was one of ours. Hank Miller. He worked on the project for years but got himself fired ten months ago for leaking source code onto the internet.”

Toby nodded to himself as the Cop got into the front seat. “I remember hearing about that.”

“While we can’t prove this is him,
that
certainly was. The upload came from his house, and the most recent updates to the released code were his. He was trying to make a quick buck off of the efforts of the entire company, but whoever bought the code just dumped it online. There have been major alterations to our code base since then, but we think he might have built in a back door somewhere and used the dump to cover it. And to give himself access to it form outside.”

“Bummer.”

She smiled. “He stole from us, and he’s using what he stole to give himself access now. You saw the tail end of what he was doing, and he picked you to be the pawn in his little game.”

“Why me?”

“Don’t know that. You’d have to ask Miller.”

The cop tapped on the cage separating the front of the car. “We’re going to swing by your place. Get a bag together for a few days.”

Toby frowned. “What’s all this about? Why a few days?”

Claire shook her head. “There’s no easy way to explain this. Miller… may very well be responsible for the blast downtown earlier today. It looks like he set that off while he was talking to us. He got all crazy. It happened. So he’s serious and there might be worse if we don’t play along, so while Cliff, here,” the cop up front gave a nod, “and the rest of the police try to find him, we need to make a good showing to keep him from doing anything worse. There’s talk of bringing in feds, too. Miller has… kinda show up on their radar since he got fired.”

Toby blinked a few times. “And I’m involved in this how?”

“Not just involved, Mr. Morant. In the game Miller has put together you’re the only piece that matters.” She held up her phone. A video was playing.

Toby recognized the room. It was the stone building with the stained glass windows. The people he had seen appeared one at a time in their fancy shining gear. They milled around looking confused for a few moments before the small bearded man appeared in the center of the room.

“Welcome employees of Brave New World Entertainment. You are all that are presently logged in, and as such, you’re the only accounts from the building that will be
able
to log in.”

The armored man from before stepped forward. “What is this about? Do you know who I am?”

“Why yes, Paul, I know exactly who you are.” The small man turned a wicked grin on the armored man. “You’re the chief executive officer of Brave New World Entertainment. And you, like all your flunkies, are a pawn to my whims.”

“Like hell.” The armored man’s hand moved.

“Ah-ah. I wouldn’t advise that. I’ve got a message for you, and I think you’ll want to hear about it first hand, Paul.”

Paul scoffed. “Is it your resignation? Who are you?”

“Who I am matters little. Who I represent matters a great deal. There are certain interests that have a desire to show your country that they’re not safe, even at home. They have explosives and itchy trigger fingers. You know the type. So you’d best listen carefully, I don’t have long.”

The faces in the room turned back and forth, there was low whispering.

“I’m working with some very nasty people, but in truth, their goals are not mine. I really couldn’t care less about their wars, real or imagined. But they did offer me resources which I have made use of, and I managed to talk them into a few things on my behalf. This is my… side project. You may have noticed the outage last night while your little ants scurried to try and put things back in order to no avail, only for it all to suddenly work again?” The little man held up a hand and pointed to himself. “Bit of back end work on my part. I’m starting an event in a few minutes and I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Paul ground his teeth. “Miller. It has to be.”

The small bearded man continued as if Paul had not spoken. “I’ve locked out every account from your building that isn’t currently playing, and brought everyone that was to this room. You’re the only ones in the know, and you’re the only ones in here that are going to be in the know.

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create an empire from nothing. You need to build an army vast, powerful, and loyal enough to challenge the greatest threat this world will ever know.” He pointed to a distant peak just visible through the glass. “I’ll be waiting there. You have one week to reach me and best me. If you don’t, I’m going to shut you down. All of it. Top to bottom. Game, forums, website, all gone. I have access, so it’s really not a big deal for me.”

Paul shook his head. “I doubt any of this has merit. But even if you’re telling the truth, we have security experts on hand to counter any such attempts.”

“Well then, by all means, ignore me. It’s not like I co-opted your entire game, changed the rule set and abducted all the staff members on hand.” He rolled his eyes. “Believe what you want. If you want to keep the fruit of your near decade of effort, then you should be concerned with what
I
want. And what I want is to see humanity at its best. I want to see men do what they did for so long. Rise up, their strength alone whipping a savage world into order. That doesn’t happen outside anymore. It can’t. It’s all fear and hate and Geneva conventions. Boring. That’s not what we were born to be. We’re conquerers.”

A blast could be heard on the phone. It was loud enough that the speakers threw static, unable to truly play the sound.

The small bearded man smiled. “And now you know I’m serious. Good.” He took a few steps toward the end of the room. “All great empires needed a leader. Someone to stand at the head, to take on the risk and share the rewards.” He turned, his eyes moving across the room. “But I don’t think any of you will work. I need someone who will learn and grow. Who will shape this world with deeds, not with insider knowledge or two years of beta tests.” He shook his head then held up a hand and moved it left to right several times.

Toby watched. “He’s paging through something.”

Claire nodded. “Account information.”

The small man smiled. “Ah, here we go… And here is your champion.”

Tobin Ironblood stood at the end of the room looking terribly confused.

“Huh. I know this part.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know the rest.” She fast forwarded the video.

“-a rain check on that one. Time for work.” Toby’s own voice sounded strange on the recording.

“Hey, wait, you can’t just… god damn it.” Paul hung his head.

The image of Tobin Ironblood shimmered for a moment, but it refocused. He stood, unmoving. Unblinking.

Toby squinted at the screen. “Uhh…”

Claire stopped the video and put the phone away. “Your character has the only weapon in the game that can hurt Miller, and hurting Miller’s character is what is required. But you’re vulnerable to every other player just as every other player is presently vulnerable to you. And yet your biggest problem is unique. To keep you from simply logging out and not taking part, Miller altered your character. It
can’t
log out. Whether you’re in control or not, Tobin Ironblood is in the world and people are trying to kill him.”

3

Toby blinked a few times.

“That’s bad.”

Claire nodded. “Very bad. We’ve kept people out of the church and thankfully it’s one of a handful of safe harbor areas that PVP simply isn’t possible, even with open PVP enabled on the server. But a mannequin that looks like you isn’t going to face Miller, and he knows it. He brought us there because he knew he was changing the PVP rules. He’s setting this up as a long shot… but he didn’t want to kick us while we were down. That would have ended his game.”

Cliff scoffed from up front. “Egomaniacs, man.”

Toby stared ahead at the passing headlights. “Right, so… you’re going to help me from my apartment… somehow?”

She shook her head. “No. I came along to convince you to come. If Cliff had shown up alone you might have run. You’re going to get some things and we’re going to head to the Brave New World headquarters downtown. We’ll be able to help more if you’re there and the police want to keep all of us in one place so they can monitor the situation.”