As Jade readied her katana to strike Keith, Nate pounced onto the platform with his dagger poised, while Talia swooped behind him with her claws bared.
Saffie could feel the adrenaline flooding her body. Nate was going to do it. He was going to put an end to Jade’s reign of madness.
But without even looking in Nate’s direction, Jade wafted her left hand in his direction, said “Suspend in Time,” and both he and Talia froze like statues.
“How curious,” Jade said, looking at Nate but keeping the sword hovering precariously above Keith. “Someone strong enough to break the command I set. Get him out of my sight.”
Immediately, Liam and another one of Jade’s followers grabbed Nate’s rigid form and carried him off the platform to somewhere Saffie couldn’t see him.
Jade slowly looked back at Keith. Something seemed to have changed in her eyes. It was like all the hatred had gone. She took a deep breath, and the firm grip she had held on the hilt of her sword seemed to relax a little.
Saffie was flooded with relief. Jade couldn’t do it. Nate might not have been able to defeat her, but his distraction had made her reconsider what she had been planning to do. She’d changed her mind at the last mome-
“This is for my father,” Jade said, and plunged the sword into Keith’s back.
As the blade came out of his stomach, Keith’s health bar appeared above his head and began depleting.
50 percent, 30 percent, 15 percent, 5 percent.
When Keith’s health hit zero, Sabre let out an agonising sigh, and slowly her body began to disintegrate into tiny fragments that dispersed and vanished into the night sky.
In Keith’s final moment, it seemed that the Overworld chip let him out of the game, because he briefly regained control of his own movement. With a trembling arm, he reached out and gently closed his fingers, as if taking the hand of someone nobody else could see, then he relaxed into a heap. Just like that, Keith was gone. Not from Overworld, but from life itself. Just the empty vessel of a man who had been loved and respected by so many.
Saffie’s cheeks were soaking. Jade had done it. And Keith would only be the first.
“Right now,” Jade yelled, yanking her katana out of Keith’s body, “I am only God to those of you who are here on this rooftop - the current Overworld player base of London. But that is about to change. You see, for the last six months, I have been building a production line right here in the Trellis.”
One of Jade’s followers stepped up to the platform and presented something small to Jade, which she then held up for everyone to see. It was an Overworld key, except instead of its bow and crystal being blue, they were neon green.
“That’s right. Nobody has ever been able to trace where the original Overworld keys come from, so I had my team analyse them and create duplicates… en masse.”
A metallic whir suddenly filled the air, and hundreds of green keys began pouring out of what Saffie had at first thought were just vents onto the rooftop surface.
“This is the real reason I have brought you all here to the Trellis this evening. To give you a gift. Multiple gifts, in fact. I am gifting each of you a key for each member of your immediate family. It is time to begin spreading our new reality to those who are uninitiated. First, family members, then the whole of London, then the rest of the UK, and then… the world.”
Jade paced across the platform.
“Starting right now, each of you will go home and you will bring your immediate family members into Overworld using the keys I provide you with. Any family members who resist…” she paused, and her eyes narrowed. “Do not take no for an answer.”
Saffie felt herself turn on her heel, and begin walking back to the elevator, along with the rest of the crowd. As she did, she bent down and picked up two keys from a pile on her left.
SAFFIE: NATE.
SAFFIE: NATE CAN YOU READ THIS?
SAFFIE: ARE YOU OKAY???
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
CORA: He won’t be able to reply.
CORA: Time Freeze spells halt all messaging functions.
Saffie made to reply in the group chat a few times, but she ended up saying nothing. What could she say? What could she do? What could any of them do? Even if a few more people were able to break through Jade’s command like Nate, they would be no match for Jade. She was far too powerful.
Before long, Saffie was back on the streets of the financial district, heading north west, the direction of Hampstead. As she strode forward, she could see that the police were now out and about, trying to stop players to question them, but the players were resisting, and violence was breaking out. The further she went, the more police sirens she began to hear, and she noticed that they were stopping traffic and closing the roads.
As she turned onto her street, she saw that her parents were already out in the front porch, looking around frantically. When her mum spotted her, she put her hand to her chest.
“Saffie!” she said furiously. “We’ve been worried SICK about you! Where have you been?!”
Saffie wanted to scream at them to run away from her, but she couldn’t do anything other than march towards them.
“Three people broke into our garden!” shouted Peter. “They were looking for something in the tree! What is going on, Saffie?!”
As Saffie got closer and closer to her parents, she could feel Jade’s control increasingly warping her features into an evil snarl. When she reached them she stopped abruptly and distributed a key to each hand.
She thrust them out.
“You will take these keys, and you will press them to your left temples.” The words spewed out of Saffie’s mouth uncontrollably.
“Darling, what are you talking about?” said Peter. “What are these things?”
“Take… the… keys,” Saffie demanded.
“Peter,” Holly said gravely. “Call the police.”
“What?! Holly, love, this is our daughter!”
“JUST DO IT, PETE!”
“Take the KEYS,” Saffie snarled, even though she was desperately trying to scream the opposite.
Peter hurried into the house, and with caution, Holly took the key Saffie was holding in her left hand. Without breaking eye contact with Saffie, Holly raised it up. Saffie thought she was going to adhere and place it to her temple, but instead she tossed it onto the street.
Saffie’s eyes watched it clatter across the pavement, and then she felt her head turn slowly back to her mum, and their eyes locked on each other again.
With a swift motion, Saffie’s hand flung up and latched itself around her mum’s throat. Holly’s eyes went wide, and she tried to say something, but Saffie squeezed so tight that all her mum could do was gargle.
Saffie tried to pull her hand away, but the more she pulled, the tighter her grip around her mum’s neck became. She didn’t want this. Her relationship with her mum was complicated to say the least, and there were times she had wished she could get some kind of revenge for everything that had happened.
But strangle her?
Holly snatched at Saffie’s fingers, trying to pry them away, but Saffie’s grip was too tight. In a frantic scuffle, Saffie felt her mum squirming as she tried to latch onto anything around her.
“P-e-t-e!” Holly rasped, her eyes going bloodshot as she flailed for the front door.
Suddenly Saffie felt an almighty pull as her mum got a grip on the doorframe. In a heavy tumble, Holly managed to pull Saffie into the hallway before falling onto her back with Saffie on top of her, still clutching her throat.
And then…
Saffie felt the tension in her hands loosen. One by one, her fingers released themselves from her mum’s neck.
Holly gasped for air and kicked herself from underneath Saffie, scrambling backwards across the carpet until she connected with the base of the stairs.
Saffie could only stare at her own trembling fingers in horror at what Jade had been able to make her do, and confusion as to why her hands had suddenly let go.
“I can’t get through to the police!” Peter yelled from the kitchen. “The damned Faraday Cage is blocking our phone signal!”
The Faraday Cage.
That’s why she had regained control of her own movements. Inside the house, Saffie’s connection to Overworld, and effectively to Jade, was broken.
‘Mum,” Saffie said, tears bursting from her eyes immediately as she reached out. “I… I don’t…”
“Stay away from me!” Holly screamed.
“What the bleeding hell is going on?” Peter blurted as he raced to join them in the hallway.
Saffie had to tell them. She had to tell them everything.
In a flurry of words, everything came spilling out. About the electronic chip in her brain that allowed her to see things other people couldn’t see, about the in-game poison that had put Dax into his coma, that there were thousands of other players in London, that a restaurant owner named Jade Sakata had seized control of them all with her mind, and that she planned on forcing everyone else in the world to join the game so she could rule over them all as their new God.
When Saffie stopped talking, she panted as her parents processed all of the information.
It was Holly who spoke first.
“You stupid, stupid girl,” she said through her bottom teeth as she shook her head slowly. “Just as stupid as my infantile brother. For both of you to get involved in something like this? I’m ashamed to call you my-”
“ENOUGH” boomed Peter, his face bright red with rage. “I won’t allow you to speak to our daughter like that.”
There was silence for a moment as Holly stared at him with her mouth open.
Peter turned to Saffie.
“Is there any way to stop this… Jade?”
Saffie paced into the living room and pulled open the drawer that her dad had stashed the Faraday headbands in.
She grabbed one and strapped it around her head.
“I think there might be,” she said. “I need to get back to the roof of the Trellis.”
Peter scooped his car keys from a bowl.
“We can’t take the car,” Saffie said. “The roads are all blocked.”
“Then I’ll escort you by foot,” Peter said.
Saffie looked to her left, through the glass patio doors and out into the garden. She had a more efficient mode of transport in mind.
“Dad,” she said, “I think it’s about time we took that ride in your quadcopter.”