Digital Heretic (18 page)

Chapter 39

Trew

 
“Who’sShane? An
d
how come every time I get one answer, three new ones seem to suddenly appear?”

  “
Yeah it’s great, isn’t it?” Angelica spun one of the chairs around, grabbed a seat that positioned her facing the door, and gave Trew a sly smile. “It just gets worse with time. I’ve been ‘in the loop’ for the past four years, and for every answer I get, it’s seven new questions.”

 
Trew sat down and stared at Brandon.

 
Brandon took a seat and placed his hands flat on the table. He looked silently at Trew, then nodded and began to speak.

  “
Creating and building the Game was an… aggressive undertaking. I was a young man full of brilliant ideas and beliefs, so sure that the world would become a better place because of the product I was about to bring into existence. I spent weeks and then months constructing an entire universe to exactly mirror ours. No one seemed to get it. No matter how hard I tried to convey my vision to others, they just didn’t understand all of the complexities. The only way to get anything done was to break each task into smaller jobs that a regular person could comprehend enough to accomplish.”

 
Brandon took a sip of water and activated the single viewer on the wall, displaying a slowly rotating model of Earth. “Then I met a

programmer named Shane. He got it
. He got me. I was so relieved to find another person who understood exactly what I was trying to do. Over a short period of time I began to share some of the larger responsibilities of  constructing the Game with him. It was good to finally have someone else appreciate the difficult and incredible things that I was accomplishing.”

  “
Sounds romantic,” Angelica said.

  “
Then you must be listening to a different story,” Brandon said. “Finally, the Game was complete and we were ready to send in the beta testers. Of course I had to go in, and so did Shane. We had a blast. Beta testers had complete knowledge of where they were, unlike regular players of today. We knew it was a game and we went in to test it extensively to find all the glitches and mistakes in the hopes of making it as perfect as possible for the kids.”

  “
What went wrong?” Trew asked.

  “
Everything,” Brandon said. “Or just one thing, but it was most important. There can be only one King, and Shane believed it should be him. It quickly became clear that Shane believed it was his universe to rule and control. The first beta test was a disaster. It turned into a destructive world war between the two of us.”

  “I’ll
bet that was something to watch,” Trew said.

 
Brandon laughed. “It was an epic event,” he admitted. “And it did allow us to improve the functionality of the Game in many aspects. It also felt very rewarding to drive a six inch blade into his eye when I claimed victory.”

  “
So where is he now?” Trew asked. “Does he influence the Game from another building in this city, or somewhere else on Tygon? Is he a super-rich man like yourself who sponsors players?”

  “
Shane might have shared my vision of the Game from a technical point of view,” Brandon said. “But he didn’t share my vision for what the Game could do to help our society and people. He was just a clever computer programmer and I mistakenly gave him too much power for a brief time. When he was ejected from the first

beta
test, I knew he would be a threat to everything I had built, so I needed to neutralize him.”

  “
If he was a brilliant programmer how could you stop him from interfering?”

  “
There was only one way to protect the Game,” Brandon said. “I locked him inside of it.”

  “
Inside of what?” Trew asked.

  “Inside the
Game,” Brandon said. “He entered the Game with the first batch of students, along with the initial Timeless. It was my intention to have him enter like the students, with no knowledge of the real world and a blank memory. Shane caught advance warning and somehow he programmed his avatar to remember who he was.”

  “
He cheated,” Angelica said.

  “
He manipulated the system,” Brandon said. “But that was just the beginning. For the first few centuries he caused a significant amount of damage. My plan wasn’t a good one, I realized that he needed to be ejected from the Game and dealt with here, but he continually learned of my plans and stayed ahead of every Timeless I sent after him.”

  “
The primitive people of Earth shared stories of these battles from one generation to the next,” Angelica said. “They believed it was angels fighting.”

  “
The favoured angel was cast down from the heavens, attacked by his brethren in an attempt to destroy him. Exiled from his home and never allowed to return to it.”

  “
The Fallen?” Trew asked.

  “That’s
the name he took. To most, he is known as Lucifer,” Brandon said. “But his real name is Shane.”

  “Can’t
you First him?”

  “
He disabled our ability to do that, long ago.” Brandon said. “He’s destroyed all the Eternals and Infernals that we send after him to bring him down. Over the ages he has befriended a small number

of Timeless and even assists them from time to time. They either protect him, or he remains hidden from them. I haven’t been able to catch him.”

  “Shane is the 5,000 year old Eternal that the Devil sometimes listens to?” Trew was quickly putting the pieces together.

  “
Yes, it’s a complicated situation,” Brandon admitted.

 
“He can kill Timeless, he’s been inside the Game since day one, and he knows it’s a computer simulation which he helped design. Why not just send a flood of Timeless to bring him down? There must be a way to eliminate him from the Game.”

 
“He’s aware of that danger, and for a long time he has hidden. Every once in a while he surfaces, but our inability to view him and track him makes it easy for him to disappear again.”

 
“He’s very powerful?” Trew said.

 
“More than you can imagine,” Brandon said. “He helped build the world, and there are many little features that we built into the digital landscape that give him immense power. He can open a door on one continent and step out on another; he can bend the laws of physics. Imagine a video game where the programmers insert fun glitches and Easter eggs, special features that allow you to change the game. We did that extensively during development, and Shane knows them all. He likely even built some in that I don’t know about. Putting him inside the Game was the most serious mistake I made. It was the fly in the ointment added at the very beginning of creation.”

 
“Why not just enter the Game yourself and hunt him down?” Trew asked.

 
Brandon looked at Trew with a blank stare. Confused, Trew looked towards Angelica; she just closed her eyes and shook her head slightly.

  “All right
, so what does his involvement mean?” Trew asked. “If he’s the one who lifted the Clean Mark on Danielle?”

  “It’s
never good when Shane enters the field during a play.” Brandon said. “Not good for the player, and often seriously disruptive for Earth’s history. First, it means any Timeless can kill her. Most won’t be interested, but some will, and that’s a serious problem.”

  “Can’t
we just convince everyone to leave her alone?” Trew asked.

 
“There are too many games going on inside the Game,” Angelica said. “Players will lie to your face and stab you in the back. The Mark ensured they would all behave, but if Shane lifted it my guess is another one won’t hold.”

  “Okay
, so Infernals will target her. What else?”

 
“Eternals likely will as well,” Angelica said. “We have to suspect everyone.”

 
“I know Shane,” Brandon said. “He desperately wants one thing above all else. My guess is he’s going to target Danielle and see if she can somehow help him get it.”

 
“What does he want?” Trew asked.

 
“He wants to escape from the Game and come back here,” Brandon said.

 
“But that’s not possible. His body must have perished years ago.” Trew said.

 
“It did,” Brandon confirmed.

 
“Then how can he leave the Game and come back?” Angelica asked.

 
Brandon sighed. “There is a way…”

Chapter 40

 
Just before entering my last play, I unlocked the option to become a Timeless.

 
It was very expensive; I paid a lot of credits to simply
try
to become one. I was told someone would contact me inside the Game to give me an extensive interview. If I passed their tests, they would make the offer.

  They
did contact me and put me through a rigorous screening process. At the time, I thought I was testing to become a government special operative. I guess I must have passed, because they offered to transform me into an Eternal. When I asked them what that meant, they explained that Earth was a complex virtual reality simulation and we were all just players. They said I qualified to become more than just a player; they were offering me the chance to become an immortal who could live inside the Game to help it function more smoothly.

 
What did I do? Well, of course, I laughed at them and said the idea was ridiculous. Living inside a computer simulation, really!

 
Yeah, I was disappointed when I finished that play. As a player, I really did want to be an Eternal. Apparently the final test was to see if my avatar could conceive of such a thing, which I failed.

 
I think most players would jump at the chance to become a Timeless. Sacrifice this life for an opportunity to stay in the Game? Of

course I would have! My life here is nothing special, and I was a decently ranked player when I retired.

  For the majority of us, the Game is much better than the lives we end up living after we turn 18.

Excerpt from interview with Clyde Jimmons
– ex-top ranked player

Danielle - 54

 
“
We’re already hidin
g
. For the past few years, if you’re a Gamer, then you’re a target.”

 
I hear Raphael sigh over the phone. It must be difficult for him, dealing with me all these years. I know I’ve become more reckless than even the little girl he used to protect. That’s fine, I don’t intend on behaving myself. That’s not how to play this Game. “Average Gamers have been hiding, yes,” he says. “You recklessly continue to walk around, and when you were safe from Timeless, I allowed it. But now you’re not just one of millions of walking targets, you’re the number one target for everyone who wants to kill Gamers.”

 
“Don’t be silly,” I say. “Fallen is the number one target.” It’s still a mystery to the world who Fallen is. Our team is always one step ahead of the enemy, keeping my identity safe. Maybe I’m number two now.

 
“Well, no matter what number you sit at, Stephanie and I can’t be near you right now.” I hear the frustration in his voice. Now that it’s gone, I’ve learned that one of the perks of having the Clean Mark was that two or three Eternals could constantly be with me. Apparently they give off a certain vibration or energy that allows other Timeless to track them down. If one or more Timeless stay together for a significant length of time, others will search them out to investigate what they’re up to. It’s a failsafe put in place to make sure they don’t have an opportunity to congregate and form

dangerous groups that might cause havoc, which makes sense. Solitary life is one condition imposed on the Timeless
; get a dozen or more living together and they could be powerful enough to cause worldwide damage. Stephanie has told me the real story of Troy; the great heroes were Timeless fighting each other. The real story is more exciting than Homer ever described it.

 
“So what would you like me to do, Raph?” I ask. “Can we get the Mark put back on?”

 
“No.”

 
“How many factions will come after me, if I stay visible, do you think?”

 
“All of them, Danni.” I can hear the frustration in his voice.

 
“Is there a way for me to hide from them?”

 
“Despite your eyes, and the abilities you’ve developed, you don’t appear to give off the energy signature of a Timeless, which is good. Timeless shine brightly to each other. When we pass through a town and notice a Timeless presence, we search them out. That wouldn’t be good for you.”

 
“Do I give off any unique signature?” I ask.

 
“Yes,” he says. “Everyone does, but the differences are subtle. It would take a tracker, a specialist in these small differences, to find you. They will send them eventually, but not at first. The easiest methods often work best, so they’ll just hunt you down the simplest way they can.”

 
“From my Internet trail,” I say. Every time an individual accesses the Internet they leave a traceable trail from their interaction with it. This trail makes it easy to locate anyone. “We don’t even know if I’m in danger,” I say.

 
Raphael laughs. “Sweet girl, can we just assume you’re in danger? If not today, then likely tomorrow or the next day. Whoever took the Clean Mark off you will be coming for you.”

 
“Any ideas who it was?” I ask.

 
“Daniel swears it wasn’t him or his. Gabriel says the same. Assuming they’re both telling the truth, which I am not prepared to do, that narrows it down to only a handful of others, all very powerful and dangerous. No matter how it happened, we must believe it was done on purpose and hide you until we hear otherwise.”

 
“So the odds are good that I’m going to die soon,” I say.

 
“No… not for a long time, Danni.”

 
“Hey, look, Raph, it’s fine. I know there’s another place to go to. It’s been a good run. If they hunt me down, I’m not afraid to die. I’ll get to see Trew again.”

 
“Don’t talk like that, Danni,” Raph says. “This is exactly why it’s not a good idea for people to feel so secure about a life after this one. Suddenly no one cares if they stop breathing here. What if it’s worse there, Danni?”

 
I say nothing. The thought hadn’t occurred to me.

 
“What if you wake up in chains, a slave in a reality of misery?”

 
“Is that the reality we go to?” I ask.

 
“I have no idea. It’s been a long time since I was there, but it
could
be. How about you just hang on to this life as long as you can? Besides, remember, you only get the best score by playing as long as you can in here.”

  “All right…”

  “I have feelers out,” Raphael says. “Both the Infernals and Eternals are looking, too. Our resources are extensive, so the odds are good we will know soon. Hold on a second, Danni, my other line is ringing.”

 
I wait while he takes the call, watching Melissa fly around in the open blue sky. I gaze at her and wonder at the finer points of what she is doing. I’m so close to joining her up there, I wish I had no other worries in the world right now and could focus only on flying.

 
I hear a click and Raphael comes back on the line. “Where are you right now?” he asks. I can tell from the tone of his voice that his other call was not good.

  “
Half an hour outside of town, practicing with Melissa in a field.” I say.

  “
I found out who took the Mark off you,” he says. “Steph just heard.”

  “
Who was it?”

  “
A guy named Shane,” he says.

  “
Never heard of him.” I can tell from the tone of his voice that this isn’t a good thing for me.

  “We’ve
mentioned him by another name before…”

 
Uh-oh. My blood turns to ice as a thought enters my head. “The Fallen?” I ask.

  “
Bingo,” he says.

  “
Damn.”

 
Melissa drops down beside me. “Three black cars are speeding this way,” she says. “We should get out of here.”

  “
Gotta go, Raph. Call you soon.” I hear him ask me what’s wrong but I hang up the phone and look at Melissa.

  “
Which way do we drive to get away?” I ask.

 
Melissa shakes her head, a grim look on her face. “No time to drive, Danni. We’re gonna have to fly out of here.”

 
I begin to protest, to tell her she knows I can’t fly, but her look tells me she’s serious. I can see the dust from the cars as they approach and my mouth goes dry. I feel like a baby bird about to be kicked out of the nest by its mother, and I’m scared.

  “
Damn.”