Gamerunner (6 page)

There’s a blue swirl of light around the two identical figures; the corpse dissolves into stars and smoke. When it clears, Herkules is grinning.

PvP mode is enabled
.
There is one live player within range. Do you want to engage him?

‘Yes, please,’ Rick says, just loud enough for Herkules to hear.

Herkules turns round, slowly.

Rick meets his eyes and feels laughter bubbling up inside him. He says, ‘Surprise!’

‘What on earth are you doing? Go away and leave me alone.’

‘What the hell are
you
doing? How did your corpse get here? If you die here, your account gets wiped. There’s no way you could leave your body here. You must have cheated.’ He smiles, showing his teeth.

‘Look . . .’ Herkules says. ‘So I might have found a bug. So what? It’s none of your business. Anyway, now you know about it too.’

‘And the map?’

‘What map? I don’t have a . . .’ He stops. His eyes flicker — he must be reading something that Rick can’t see — and his hand creeps towards his belt. Rick keeps his eyes on Herkules’ index finger, ready to dodge as soon as a weapon materialises. ‘You want to fight me, do you?’

‘Yep.’

‘That’s stupid. Look,’ Herkules says again. Either the mimic program isn’t working properly or he hasn’t got the hang of sounding reasonable. ‘There’s no reason to fight me. We can both complete the quest — and you’ll get more reputation from that than from killing me. And anyway I’d win. Give it up, sweetheart.’

‘Nope. Sorry. No go.’

‘What?’

Rick shrugs. His muscles are so tired it feels like his shoulder blades have got stuck together behind his back. ‘I’ve got to fight you,’ he says, trying to sound like he’s taking it seriously.

‘Oh,’ Herkules says, and turns away, fiddling with something at his waist.

And spins back, catching Rick off-guard.

He’s fast. Gods, he’s fast. Rick hears his own voice saying,
You mean he always wins
.

Stop it. Stop
thinking
.

Rick ducks, rolls, inelegantly, smacking his shoulder on the ground, but he’s out of the way, just. He grabs for Herkules’ ankle, but the other foot swings up and stamps down into his face, and he has to block with both forearms. He rolls forward and on to his feet, and spins to face Herkules, his back against the wall, breathing so hard he thinks his lungs might spring a leak. He rests his hand on his weapon-belt. Double daggers? Sword and dagger? Does he want speed, or range?

Herkules says, ‘Well then, sweeth—’

And swings his sword in the middle of the word: a nice trick, but this time Rick’s ready. His hands have already chosen his weapon — daggers; if he doesn’t have speed he doesn’t have a chance — and the blades meet and cross in front of him, catching Herkules’ sword at eye level and swinging it away. The metal catches the light and shines like lightning. He lets the momentum carry him off the vertical and kicks with his free foot, but Herkules pulls his sword away and jumps back, on guard.

‘Nice try, little girl.’

It’s stupid, how much that annoys him. He takes a long breath, diluting the anger. He thinks: I’ll kill him. Then he’ll be sorry.

He relaxes his arms, standing ready. The dagger hilts tremble under his fingers, as if they’ve got a mind of their own. He wishes that they did; he needs all the help he can get. He edges forward, sideways, keeping his weight balanced, ready to go in any direction. Makes an experimental feint —

But Herkules is there before he is.

He smashes his sword blade down on the guard of Rick’s dagger. The hilt leaps, biting into the bones of his hand. Rick’s fingers open. He can’t stop them. The dagger drops to the ground. He looks down at it, his guts sinking. The vibration runs up to his shoulder like an electric current, stinging. He thinks: Another centi-em and he’d have disabled my hand. And then: How the hell did he do that? I’d only just
moved
. . .

Not that it matters, right now.

Herkules punches with his other hand, smiles at Rick’s desperate block, dodges his counter-punch smoothly, and swings the blade of his sword up and round, until it’s under Rick’s chin. It’s all so easy; like he was reading every move as it came, like he was hardly bothering to try.

Oh, gods, Rick thinks, he’s going to kill me. And then Daed will kill me, too.

‘So you’re one of the Alpha Omega, are you?’ Herkules says.

‘Yeah,’ Rick says. He wants to close his eyes, but it seems cowardly, somehow.

Herkules laughs. ‘Sure you are. I’ll look you up. What’s your name? You might as well tell me. When I kill you your account will be wiped anyway.’

‘Athene,’ Rick mutters.

‘Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl.’

But he doesn’t answer. He stares into the expensive high-cheekboned face and wonders why Herkules doesn’t just kill him. In the Assassins they call it Bondvillain Syndrome: the need to gloat, the subconscious need to give your victim a few more minutes of life. A weakness: you can lose a fight that way.

Or win it, Rick thinks; if you’re the victim.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘You’re not too bad-looking yourself.’ There’s something in his left hand: the other dagger. His arm is hanging limply at his side, and he wouldn’t have time to do anything before the sword blade went into his throat. But it’s interesting. It sets something off in Rick’s mind: a mental itch, the beginning of a plan.

Herkules frowns. He’s clearly not used to people being polite, before he kills them. ‘Er . . .’ he says. ‘Right.’

That’s good, Rick thinks. I’ve surprised him. He doesn’t know what I’m thinking. There might still be a chance . . .

What would Daed do?

Herkules says, ‘How come you got this far?’

‘In the Roots? Oh. Well. I’m good.’

‘No one’s that good. Who’s your Cheat?’

Rick takes a second to understand: the translation program again. He opens his mouth to say ‘No one’, then hesitates. The sword blade hovers in front of his larynx, and the
enemy in range
signal is so strong it hurts. He says, slowly, ‘Daedalus.’

‘
Daedalus?
Don’t wind me up, you little —’

‘I’m not winding you up. How do you think I got here?’

‘Daedalus isn’t
real
, you silly girl. Daedalus is a myth.’ Herkules laughs. ‘Look around. You think one person could create this? It takes
hundreds
of designers, years of work, player feedback, and a hell of a lot of of AI code to create this.
Daedalus
is just a convenient idea. Not a person.’ He tilts his wrist, ready to strike, and grins. ‘So don’t muck me around.’

‘It’s true.’ Rick’s pushing it; any moment now he’ll get that sword through his throat. ‘I’m from Crater. Daedalus —’ He swallows. What would Daed do?
Think
. . . ‘Daedalus is a friend of mine, one of the designers. He sells cheats on the black. I had to give him a couple of grand for this. But it’s risk-free. Whoever your Cheat is, Daedalus is better.’

‘So how come you’re the one with a sword pointing at you?’

Rick tries to smile. ‘Good point. But if you kill me I’ll just come back tomorrow. After I’ve reported you to a GM.’

The bluer-than-blue eyes narrow. ‘How can cheats be risk-free?’

‘Crater turn a blind eye. Because it’s him. Daedalus. He can do what he wants, as long as he goes on working for them. A few cheats running here and there — who cares? As long as he’s still on their side.’ Rick’s talking too fast; but it’s OK, the translation program will cover it.

‘I don’t believe you.’

It takes every ounce of self-control Rick has to shrug; but he manages it. ‘Fine. Kill me.’ He tilts his head back, as if he’s bored, surrendering himself for the coup-de-grâce. ‘Herkules404, isn’t it? Exploiting a bug . . . or commissioning a Cheat . . . the GMs won’t like it . . .’

A pause. Rick stays still.

‘Does Daedalus . . . this Cheat, whatever . . . sell to anyone who can pay?’

The sword blade hasn’t dropped; but there’s a tiny, tiny bit more space between Rick’s neck and the edge of the metal.

‘Yeah, if you can contact him. But he’s hard to get hold of. Has to be.’

‘So how would . . . how do you contact him?’

Rick stops himself from laughing. Just. ‘I told you. He’s my mate. I meet him face to face, tell him what I want, where I want to go . . . how hard I want it to be, even. Sometimes it’s good to have a challenge. To know that even if I’m technically cheating, no one else could do what I’m doing.
You
understand.’

Herkules’ eyes flicker, searching Rick’s face. He stares back, steady, because that’s the only thing the mimic program will render exactly.

‘He’s expensive, though? Daedalus?’

‘Not too —’ He stops, smelling the danger, and smiles. ‘Well . . . yeah. Sure. What do you expect?’

Herkules frowns. ‘Suppose I . . . if this is true — and I’m not saying I believe you — how would, for example, how would
I
contact him?’

‘If you let me go, I’ll give you his real name.’

The tip of the sword dips, wavers, slides absently away to the side, above Rick’s shoulder.

One strike, he thinks. Just the one. One chance.

The tension in Herkules’ sword-hand relaxes. ‘Yeah. Right. And how do I know this isn’t a —’

Rick steps sideways and punches with his left hand, dagger blade straight into Herkules’ windpipe. There’s no resistance — the tank doesn’t sculpt PvP combat — so only his eyes tell him that he’s done it. He jumps back, because it would be stupid to get killed now, but there’s no need.

Herkules goes straight down; his ghost stays where he was, the transparent face full of disbelief. He says, ‘. . . a trick?’

There’s a five-second pause. Then the corpse starts to evaporate — as if this was an instance, and it was going to reappear outside . . . The way it would have done before, Rick thinks, if Herkules hadn’t been cheating.

The ghost turns to watch it go, helpless, his expression turning to fury. His transparent fists clench. The translation program says, ‘Muck you, little female dog, muck you,
muck
—’

Rick watches too. All that expensive armour, he thinks; all that expensive body-moulding, all that virtual beauty . . .

Then the ghost disappears; not dissolving like the corpse, but gone cleanly, like a candle flame. Spat out of the dungeon, to the nearest soul-tree . . . no. Wait.

Rick puts his dagger blindly back into his belt, suddenly trembling. That, he thinks, that was someone dying for
real
. Or nearly. The ghost hasn’t gone to a soul-tree; it’s been wiped. No resurrection for him.

He says, ‘A trick? Honestly, the idea! Nice girl like me . . .’

He’s done it. He’s won.

Chapter 6

Rick drops to the floor and lies flat, staring up at the ceiling. Even that’s modelled perfectly. He starts to laugh.

You have defeated Herkules404 in PvP combat. This account has now been closed, so the corpse is unavailable for looting. All items have been transferred automatically into your inventory.

Oh. He’d forgotten about all that stuff. He says, ‘Open inventory,’ and watches the scroll unfurl against Daed’s beautiful ceiling. Armour — well, fat lot of good
that
was — winged sandals, which he already has and are overrated anyway, a sword, which should raise a decent sum at auction . . . hundreds of gilt, a library of maps . . . Gods, who cares, anyway? He can’t keep this stuff: now he’s got rid of Herkules, he’s got to kill himself. Well, Athene. And she’ll be wiped, just like Herkules, blinking out of existence, because when you die in the Roots . . .

He wonders vaguely where Herkules got his cheat. It was a good one. Clever. He thinks: Hats off.

He gets slowly to his feet. The euphoria has gone. He thinks: At least now I can go back to bed. And Daed will be pleased with me. That’s something, isn’t it?

He looks listlessly at the line of disabled traps stretching back the way he came. Beyond them there’s a spindle-trap, still active, that he remembers vaulting over, a lifetime ago. That’ll do.

But he can’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. He tries to recall the rush of triumph he felt a moment ago, but it’s faded, drying to nothing, like sweat. He’s never worked this hard, not for anything. He raises his eyes to his inventory — Athene’s inventory — and wonders what she’d do if he didn’t kill her, if she logged in tomorrow and found all this stuff in her account. Would she ever find out what he’d done? She might work it out: that armour might be custom-made . . . a map of the Roots . . . But she won’t be able to log in, tomorrow, if he kills her. She’ll have to open a new account.

He says, ‘Open map of the Roots.’ It unfolds into place, over the map that Daed gave him, and he waves it sideways so that he can compare them. Yep — a pretty good copy, less detailed, but —