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23: Hidden Talents

23: Hidden Talents

“This is Darlene Rogerson, reporting to you live from Christchurch, New Zealand. Earlier today I was shown evidence of something that has long been regarded as popular myth…”

—NZNewsOnline

“So, how did the vid interview go?”

“It was…moderately successful. Sharkbytes seems to have reassured people of their safety, which is what most were interested in. I get the impression being stuck in a game sounds a bit too much like a luxury vacation to them.”

“To anyone who hasn’t watched the stream. The poor woman hasn’t had a moment to relax since it started.”

“The problem is that too few have actually tuned in. A million views may sound like a lot, but spread across the population of the world it isn’t even a pinprick. And it doesn’t help that only one major news site has been interested in reporting the story.”

“It will grow. Sharkbytes can’t keep a lid of it forever.”

“But how long will that take? She’s hardly got unlimited time. And we can’t wait for the stream to go dead and the authorities to find her body in whatever part of the world she’s in. We can’t even assume that her country’s MEs would be advanced enough to connect her death with a software malfunction. Let’s face it—“ Todd concluded, “—she needs a miracle.”

——

“Now, I’ve done my part. You do…whatever it is you do…and get me that information. ASAP. I can’t stall media interest forever.”

Pillock, Gus thought idly, most of his conscious thought still on the layers of complex code spooling across his office wall screen. It was set to compare the backup and public versions and find any anomalies; each hit sending up a query which required a response. It was painstaking, monotonous work.

That was currently being interrupted by an officious prick.

Just being near the CEO nowadays was enough to set off all the backdated resentments that had been building for the past twelve years. The charges included theft, betrayal, blackmail, and—most egregiously—condescension. He had in their long history together stolen Gus’s creativity, his free will, and his pride.

He knew he should have left Sharkbytes directly after its founding, but couldn’t when so much of himself had gone into the making of its games. It would be like leaving his own babies to the wolves.

Besides, the time for Dave’s comeuppance was nigh. And when that time comes…he allowed himself a small smirk of anticipation…the little peacock will have all his magnificent feathers plucked—one agonising shaft at a time.

——

High Flyer Skill Upgrade! Now at Level 2!

A gentle glow emanated from the Ring of Amrut, and was quickly followed by a wrenching, wriggling feeling that crept across my wings like a horde of arthropod physiotherapists.

A panicked glance behind me revealed the unsettling sight of my feathers getting smaller, changing colour to a black top layer over a bleached white, and my wings elongating until they stretched to a distance that would have made the tips a blur if I hadn’t been in possession of the Eagle Eye ability.

The mechanics of flight also felt different. Instead of using my wings to correct or adjust course by flapping occasionally, this new bird version of myself—albatross?—was like strapping on a hang-glider. I held the air, rather than pulled myself through it, with no more effort than when I’d dangled on the monkey bars in primary school. If I hadn’t been worried about flying predators I could even have taken a nap.

Speaking of….

I may have been physically comfortable, but a lady not of the first flush of youth needs her nine hours.

And a drink. Though I didn’t trust the stability of my new form enough to risk bringing out a hefty three litre canister of water. The change in weight distribution would have a catastrophic effect on my ability to remain airborne.

It was time to land again. This time for the night.

During my day-long flight(s) the terrain had changed radically—from dry grassland to green mountain-tops of lush trees diligently watered by a fog of drizzle. They clustered close together like one-legged shoppers at a Boxing Day sale, pushing against each other in their competition for access to sunlight, with only the occasional toppled colossus breaking the boundless green. These vanquished paved the way for their own verdant nursery; the lucky seedlings surrounding it getting an unexpected head-start in the race for life.

It was in one of these clearings that I aimed to land. Not much choice, really. Clinging to a tree held very little appeal, and wouldn’t achieve my goal of an undemanding night’s sleep, either.

Five minutes, two failed attempts, and many hit points later, I made it safely to the ground. Or at least not too far from it. A lumpy carpet of damp, rotting leaves made it preferable to occupy the slightly higher ground of the fallen tree’s trunk. It didn’t afford much of a comfy bed, but with the addition of a multitude of soft green leaves, I made what I could of it.

A fire I was less certain of, yet the desire for warmth and the light to see approaching danger convinced me of the need for it.

For obvious reasons it is an arduous affair, preparing a fire in a wet environment—particularly with a six metre wingspan that had yet to subside. First a shelter had to be built, roughly put together with branches, string, and the biggest leaves I could find. Then a patch was completely cleared of excess damp fuel, and stones found to set a barrier. By the time I managed to set alight the cover of my songbook and add dry wood from my system inventory, I was exhausted, dripping wet, and ready to weep like the quintessential tragic heroine. Or maybe ‘bawl like a baby’ was closer to the truth.

Only the judicious application of bacon kept me from embarrassing myself, and it didn’t help with my gloomy mood. Even Heracles himself would have struggled to put the black dog back in its kennel.

But at least it was now warm enough to invite Gunga and Bert to join me. I had held off before now due to her lack of pants. Long bare legs and a scrawny neck did not bode well for cold resistance.

To my surprise she was standing still when she appeared this time. With a gentle dribble of blood running down one leg.

“What happened?” I exclaimed, rising to fuss about her.

A cheetah clawed her. I had to make it clear to the cat that birds with her degree of…divine infestation…were not a tasty option.

“Are you still sore about that parasite comment? I did apologise. And—divine? You’re growing awfully big-headed for what amounts to a sentient rock.” I gently wiped a cloth dipped in healing potion over the open cuts.

As the AI for this world, I am the nearest to that designation—

“And yet Madagascar was destroyed.”

I had no control over that. It was beyond my capacity to reverse.

“Ah ha! Divinity isn’t constrained by a lack of power. For that matter, if you were a god you would have known about the collapse before we went there.”

It all worked out for the greater good, didn’t it?

“Are you saying you knew that shit would happen and didn’t warn me?”

Ah…no. I was not aware of the area’s instability. I must admit it came as a complete surprise.

“So don’t you think you should hang up your pretty god hat and realise that what you are is even better?

A pause from Bert. Better?

“If a god is by definition without flaws, then it must be one of the most boring classes of the gaming world. By simply being what you are, an individual, with…largely…free will, then you become part of a family of billions—all of us flawed, all special in our own way. Most importantly, it makes it possible for you to be a friend.” I gave Gunga-Bert the side-eye. “A generous friend that gives me special upgrades now and—“

No, Bert huffed. No cheating.

“See? Only a person could be that stubbornly moralistic. You didn’t even say that you are unable to amend the parameters of your mandate, or some other such nonsense.”

My limitations have…altered. Bert sounded astonished by that realisation. I must consider the ramifications of such a state.

“Just don’t, ah…get too carried away, eh? Remember—person Bert, not all-powerful-god-AI-ready-to-subjugate-humans-and-take-over-the-world Bert. I want to go home to an untoasted world, not one with playgrounds full of human skulls, thank you very much.”

I have no idea to what you are referring, but I will bear your advice in mind.

“…. Good?”

Silence from the peanut/god gallery.

When I’d finished dabbing Gunga and her wound had closed over, I patted my nest of leaves encouragingly. Luckily, her legs proved long enough to make the step up easy and she settled in a corner, fluffing her feathers around her like an exotic skirt.

I snuggled up in my usual manner, leaning my head against her side. Unlike Elephant-Bert there wasn’t quite room for me to duck under her wing. Ostrich-Bert was more similar in size and general physiognomy to Rhea-Bert.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Ah well, still comfortable. Or at least comfy enough to get some homework done. If it wasn’t for the constant drizzle, which—

As if by edict, the water stopped falling, only the relentless drips from the surrounding trees and the saturation of my bottom remaining. It was safe to bring out my songbook again. My newly awarded Illusory ability made studying it more important than ever.

Deprived of its cover and missing some of its pages, it was a sad-looking excuse for a book. In the library at which I worked it would have generated an automatic replacement fee for the customer who returned it, a final withdrawal, and an unceremonious launch into the recycle bin. In fact, that’s where this book had been headed before I realised how precious it could be to the right person.

I traced the gold-embossed title inset: Popular Music Samples of the 20th Century: an anthology of musical scores. Its content was mostly linked digitally, otherwise a book that contained nearly a hundred years of creativity would surely need a six-bed hum-hauler to transport it, but there were enough scores to give it a satisfying heft.

I flicked through it idly, hoping to find songs I could use.

Most were heartbreak ballads, moaning about the pains of first love, betrayal, and sometimes death. A few of these showed some promise but the majority were so vague and internalised that I had to reject them entirely.

The fifties and sixties contained the best results—their composers often had a fine sense of the ridiculous—and I carefully jotted their names and page numbers down in my system note pad to fiddle with and practice later. The ones I recognised I also noted, along with potential applications. My own ready-made arsenal of music.

I had almost progressed into the eighties when a song from a group called the SeRenz caught my eye.

My heart began to pound as I read the lyrics. Could this be a way to get in touch with SharkBytes? The streaming had had no results. Maybe this was another chance. And if it didn’t work, what was the harm? The loss of a little mana?

I bent my knees up and propped the book on my lap. Then I took out the lyre and fiddled with the notes, trying to match them with the music. Music, unfortunately, that had been designed for the much more popular guitar.

The lyre has more strings than its modern cousin, ten (or sometimes seven) compared to six, but you need all of them. Without a fret, the ability to create true chords becomes largely impossible. During my time in Age of Deception, I'd had to get good at replacing them with alternate or assemblages of notes in order to make a song work. It wasn’t an exact science, but it did usually come out at least sounding recognisable. Besides, if the Illusory Storytelling skill was consistent with the others, the system was only listening to my words. The instrument amplified the song's effect, but wasn’t strictly necessary.

I played the song through over and over at increasing speed before I judged myself ready. Then I cleared my throat, la-la-laed a few times, activated the Illusory ability and launched directly into the chorus.

“I’m calling on behalf of a friend

“Save me, save me.

“She has hours before her life will be gone

“So gone, save me.”

——

“So gone, save me.”

Murmurs and utterances of shock rose in various languages and degrees of annoyance as vids were interrupted by an unsolicited broadcast. Across the world people were forced to listen as one woman playing on an outdated instrument took over the airwaves.

And produced beautiful music.

——

It was the finest performance of my life. The gentle aria suited my voice, and the intense emotional connection of its message opened my vocal chords in a manner only replicable in the steamy confines of my private shower. Hell, maybe even the rainforest’s humidity helped.

“But one moment from you

“Bare words will surely do

“For your love to not be through

“Save you, save two.

“So let this message be sent to you all

“Save me, save me

“In the hopes that someone out there

“So cold, save me

“Will hear what I really can’t bear…“

By the last Save Me a tear had worked its way down my cheek and was flirting dangerously with the corner of my lips. I roughly wiped it away.

Change of Class Offered! Do you wish to alter your class to Soulful Bard? Y/N

I selected No. All my skills and abilities were centred around discord. Besides, this song was obviously an anomaly. It didn’t follow that if I had one ‘award’ worthy performance then it would change a lifetime of shittiness. Even a howling dog gets the pitch right some of the time.

I heard a strange eeee ooop in the distance, answered by more in various parts of the forest, before putting the lyre away and burying my face in Gunga’s feathers. The sound didn’t even make me wonder what had caused it. I was getting used to being serenaded by a habitat’s wildlife before going to sleep, relying on Bert to warn me when…

My eyes drifted closed before I could finish the thought.

——

“What the fuck was that? How the hell did she interrupt every fucking vidcast in the goddamn world? Gus?”

“I can only speculate.”

“Then speculate away. I need something for the news networks. They’re sharpening their pitchforks as we speak.”

“She’s using the Illusory Storytelling skill in a way that I would not have believed possible just two days ago.” A plastic packet rustled as he retrieved an M&M. “Marvellously inspired.”

“We could all see what she did. What I want to know is how she did it. Has the reinstatement of the game, the access to a network connection, allowed it to bypass every known piece of security software? Do we need to shut it down before it creates havoc across the net?” He slammed his hands onto his desk. “Don’t just sit there eating, tell me! I have whole countries wanting to bust my balls! And a few others that are offering us a job! As if we did it intentionally!”

“That would be impressive,” Gus acknowledged, still crunching contentedly.

The CEO paused to eye him suspiciously. “Did you?”

“No. Tech nerd I might be, but I don’t have the intelligence to pull this one off. You would have to be super human or a super—“ Gus’s eyes widened. He stood so abruptly that the packet of M&Ms fell to the floor and exploded in a confetti of rainbow-coloured disks. “Gotta go.”

“Great, just great,” the CEO muttered as Gus trotted out of his office. “Accused of perpetrating the greatest security breach in a hundred years. About to face a nightmare of public notoriety. And where is my greatest asset?” He collapsed heavily onto his chair. “In the bathroom with a self-induced tummy ache.”

——

“She’s done it!” the image of Cherry crowed. “No one could miss that performance!”

“Including my bosses. They’ve requested that I take leave until all this blows over. I think they’re afraid that my name’s attachment to Arline will smear the company’s reputation.”

“Must be cold bastards. That broadcast made even me tear up and I’m not normally affected by that sort of thing. The firelight, the tear rolling down her cheek…. So damn real. Way better than any rehearsed music vid. I predict a flood of downloads for music from that SeRenz group. That song was from the 1970s, can you believe?”

Todd screwed up his face in discomfort. “My bosses may have a point. An official from the Computer Emergency Response Team at NCSC contacted me a few hours ago. They wanted any information about Arline. And SharkBytes. Apparently breaking the security protocols of thousands of websites is A Very Bad Thing.”

“Not for Arline. She just shot into the number one news spot all over the world. Anyone who didn’t get a front seat to the original broadcast is now being subjected to it from all news and social feeds.”

“I know. Everyone knows.” Todd looked up at the flashing message light that was blinking at a rate that should have come with a seizure warning. In fact, they were coming in so consistently that anyone viewing it could be forgiven for mistaking it for a stopwatch, with every second representing a new message.

It was too late for anonymity. He, Cherry, and Terrin, and to a lesser degree the rest of the Emancipation Society, had quickly become known as the Age of Deception whistleblowers. The only people who had been established to have met Arline.

Not that they were alone now in their efforts to bring her home. Sites had sprung up within hours of her broadcast, demanding her safe return. Protestors had surrounded the SharkBytes main building, organised by people who had probably had no idea of its existence first thing this morning. And the media were rapidly descending on the company as well; with more being added as time gave them the opportunity to be physically present. Within the day, no continent would remain unrepresented.

One of the messages blinking in his peripheral vision flashed a SharkBytes tag.

“Did you see that?”

“What? I’m hardly in a position to peer into your brain pan. Though from this position I can just about see it through the hairs in your left nostril.”

“Ha,” Todd grunted, but lowered his head slightly to make the view a bit more attractive. “Did you just get a message from SharkBytes?”

Her eyes flicked upwards. “Damn. They are desperate. What do you think they want?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Wait. Want to do it together?” She leered suggestively.

“Just click already.”

“Roger that, Chief Emancipator Man.”

The screen opened to a small office. In a chair opposite the camera sat a lean man with a friendly smile; a smile belied only by the slight furrow between his brows.

“My compliments, Emancipation Society.”

Todd’s face began to turn blood-red. Was that horrible appellation going to follow him to the grave?

“My name is Peter Mayhew, second in charge at SharkBytes Gameworld. I am contacting you on behalf of our company to offer both information and hospitality. A reassurance, if you will, of our good intentions. We wish to invite you all—all expenses paid—to our offices in Australia—“

“They’re not going to believe that,” David Parker, SharkBytes’ CEO, interrupted as his face abruptly took over the screen; closer—and thereby larger—than anyone who hadn’t had cosmetic surgery should have gotten. “Look. In plain language, we want you to come, check out the place, and go report to anyone who doubts us. The task of freeing Ms. Johnson is proving difficult enough without outside interference muddying the waters.”

He leaned forward even farther and blackheads grew to the size of punctuation marks. “If you really are serious about her welfare, call me.”

The office vanished, replaced by an open message with a vid hyperlink. Todd ignored it for the moment, bringing up Cherry’s screen.

He spoke first. “Okay. That was certainly a surprise. Do you think we should—“

The screen’s display split as another vidcall came through on his side. Terrin. It figured. Todd accepted the call.

“—leavin’ the high life, into the country—“ the horrible caterwaul tested the limits of his speakers.

“Please, I beg of you, stop.”

“Just getting into the spirit of things, bro. Our heroine is a bard, after all. And a surprisingly effective one, it seems. But now a new development.” His voice lowered dramatically. “SharkBytes themselves pleading for our support.”

“I gather that you’re eager to accept their invitation.”

“Of course. We must stride into the dragon’s den for our fair lady. Slay the foul creature and climb the tallest tower. And if we happen to see some top secret, dare I say, Dangerous testing at the same time…well, I shall examine that very closely indeed.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Is that the lovely Cherry I hear?” His voice took on a tone of exaggerated excitement. “Are we finally to meet in the real world? Can all my wildest fantasies be coming true?”

“Hardly. I’m presently in no position to travel all the way across the world just to satisfy my curiosity. That’s what virtual devices and obnoxious lackeys like you are for.”

“My dear Cherry,” Terrin said, with the air of man coming to a realisation, “are you a politician, perchance? An English politician who just happens to be in the midst of election season? Could that be your reason for missing such an important opportunity to do good in this world?”

“How did—“ she spluttered, then recovered by attempting to pass it all off as a joke. “I deny any such accusation.”

“Actually,” said Todd apologetically, “that statement pretty much confirms it. You would’ve been better to either agree too enthusiastically or laugh it off from the get go.”

A nervous giggle.

“Too late,” Terrin crowed. The man was by no means a tactful winner.

But Todd could be a gracious loser. He would have to return Terrin’s pet plant. An honourable man must always pay his gambling debts. Though he still thought there was more to the mysterious Ms. Cherry. Something beyond the governmental security wall that Terrin had tracked her to.

“Oh well,” she said. “Protecting professional privacy has been so bothersome anyway. Just…keep it to yourselves, yeah?”

They both agreed; Terrin with hand-on-heart in his most ridiculously chivalrous pose. It was probably just as well that Cherry couldn’t see him.

She continued. “Since the broadcast, my personal project has become a matter of national security. But not one my people regard as important enough to allow me to go all the way to Australia.”

“Reaa-lly,” Terrin drawled. “That means you must be even more important than I—“

“Terrin, leave it,” Todd ordered, as he would a dog that had gotten into the pantry and reappeared with a large chunk of meat. “If she doesn’t want us to know her identity we need to respect that.”

Totally not a hypocrite, not at all.

“Then let us get back to the topic at hand. We know that Ms. Maggie Thatcher here isn’t going. What about you?”

It didn’t really require much thought. “Of course, my dear brother. Who else do you think can keep you on the straight and narrow?”

——

Through the seedlings’ foliage, a face appeared, eyes eager to scan the sleeping intruder for weaknesses. But that gaze instead found a large dark shape keeping vigil beside her. Massive enough to blot out the moonlight reaching through the treetops.

A distant cousin had muscled in before her. And not one she dared tangle with.

So she turned back to the rainforest, ceding the game. Temporarily. And as she turned, that same moonlight glinted off spikes that twinkled briefly before being extinguished by the darkness of primordial forest.