The Encryption Keeper

He expertly sidestepped the swarm of large, luminescent spiders that dropped from the ragged tree on his right and picked his way down the seldom tread path scattered with the bones of those unprepared for the odd journey to Old Mortapolis. He did not pity the bones, nor did he approve of those who set such traps for true adventurers or the curiously incompetent. For, indeed, the glowing spiders were a trap, just like the ravenous rats and dive-bombing bats that had recently begun to ambush unwary visitors. Beyond being unnecessary, he felt these traps to be an insult to the indigenous vampires, werewolves, zombies and myriad ghouls and monsters that patrolled greater Necronia on behalf of the Keeper.

            Stopping at the fallen sequoia that served as the bridge across the Gulch, he waited for the sound of the troll who had always guarded the crossing. It was a simple matter to appease the troll—the tremendous beast had a weakness for flattery and song—but too often a wayward traveler surprised by the troll resorted to outlandish weapons. That approach never worked, as attested by the impressive picket of skulls bordering the threshold of the crossing. He stood admiring the polish of one of the newer skulls when he first became aware of the moan. It seemed to emanate from the giant tree that spanned the almost depthless chasm. Cautiously, he followed the low sound towards the near edge of the Gulch where the troll, with frightening effect, usually emerged. He stopped at the edge and sang a few lines of “Daisy.” This old song, he had learned by trial and error, made the enormous creature caper in unabashed delight. Then he poked his head slowly around the fallen base of the sequoia where he could see down onto the precarious ledge that was the troll’s lair.

            The scene stunned even his experienced sensibilities. The troll dangled upside-down, its massive feet nailed to the underside of the sequoia with hefty iron spikes. The already bulbous torso, head and arms had swollen and were distorted to such an extent that the troll looked like a bruised balloon ready to burst in prismatic gore. As if in emphasis, great gobs of ochre blood fell rhythmically from the troll’s pinned feet. Beneath this engorged mass of foul smelling flesh and tangled mat of bristly hair, the troll continued to moan pathetically.

            Though he felt for the suffering creature, he knew once he freed the beast that it would quickly recover. What most shocked him about the scene was not the treatment of the troll, though that was a heinous affront. The troll’s current suffering was intended to make two statements. One was a figurative statement of might; the other was a literal message scrawled boldly on the ledge in the troll’s own blood. Could this bloody statement mean Rumor was real? The words were simple, even childish, but the threat was clear. He saw it for exactly what it was: a direct challenge to the Keeper and his power over the dead.          

* * * *

Riding the bus never bothered Morton except when he had a cold. Typically, he would sink into the bus seats and hide behind a newspaper or a book. He liked anonymity, but with a cold he sniffled, sneezed and coughed, and this gave people cause to glance sidelong or stare directly at him. Morton did like people; he just did not crave their attention. So, today’s ride home was doubly uncomfortable. He was sneezing regularly and the bus was crowded. Many of the passengers were eyeing him out as he tried to suppress his sneezes into a balled up handkerchief. He would have liked to apologize, maybe even elicit their sympathy, but he knew he had to keep an even lower profile than he usually did. Recent events had spooked him.

            He almost wished he could tell the woman in the seat next to him about it, but she was leaning away from his sniffling, and he knew in his heart that she would never understand the nature of his current apprehension. Morton was not a good communicator, and this is what ultimately kept him at arm’s length from his fellow man. Even though he thought clearly—and at times brilliantly—when he tried to express himself verbally, it all became a cryptic mess of tangents and non sequiturs. Morton could get by socially with stock pleasantries, but whenever he tried to express a concept more sophisticated than “Looks like rain!” or “How about lunch?” the conversation just spiraled into blank stares and hasty apologies for having to run off for another appointment.

            Morton’s inarticulateness had steered him into a career in computing where his elegance in programming was much admired. Computer code was an exotic language that few spoke with his prowess, and he spent as much time in that virtual world as he could. In the world of real and tangible human interaction, he had learned to understand, to cope and even to come to peace with his social limitations, but, he much preferred to interface with his peers through a monitor. Morton, thus, had been in relative peace with his life and work for close to ten years, until the events of the last few days had rattled his virtual serenity. Even now, on the crowded bus he worked to reassure himself that, of all people, nothing should be able to spook him.

* * * *

Once he had freed the troll and bandaged its wounds, he crossed the Gulch and warily hurried on to Old Mortapolis. By late afternoon, he’d entered the Wold that bordered the city, but the message on the troll’s ledge would not leave his mind and almost caused him to run afoul of a pack of werewolves. Deep in thought as he moved along the ancient grove of trees, he mistook the far off howl for a breeze among the creaking limbs overhead. It was neither night nor near the full moon, so his thoughts were not tuned to this lupine threat. His distraction might have meant a gruesome end had it not been for the gnome.

            Its whisper from the knot-hole just at ear level stopped him in his tracks. “Hold up, mate. There’s trouble comin’ this here way.” He turned to see the smallish figure crouched in the recess of a mighty oak tree. The gnome’s golden jacket, curled slippers and conical hat were Las Vegas comical, but the wee one’s eyes were deadly earnest. He could now discern the werewolves’ howls for what they were and nodded.

            “Suggestions?” he asked the gnome.

            “Can ya climb?”

            “In my experience with werewolves, that’s not overly effective.”

            “Would thata be a yes or a no? Cause if it were no, yer as good as stew meat where yer standin’. If yes, then get yer daft hindquarters as far above me as ya can—and damnably quick!”

            The gnome’s steely gaze, and the rapidly growing din from the forest ahead, convinced him to pull himself into the branches directly above the gnome’s perch where he could see the path below. From above he watched curiously as the gnome tugged at its snowy white beard and then leaned out of the knothole to scatter its lengthy whiskers around the wide base of the oak.

            Within seconds, a tremendous howl let loose and the tree was surrounded by a pack of werewolves the likes of which he had never seen before. Werewolves traditionally took on the unique characteristics of their smitten progenitor: tall or short, beefy or slender, aristocratic or peasant-like. The werewolves prowling just below him and the gnome, however, were completely uniform, like nightmarish clones, each sporting the same comic-book musculature under their identically raised hackles. Each with five-inch razor claws, silvery fangs, and fiery bright eyes. Even the remains of their clothing were ridiculously similar: tight fitting, lycra-esque and gaudily colored, as if they’d just rushed out from a fitness club workout. Comical in appearance, yes, but these creatures were in a definite frenzy—a deadly looking one.

            They swiped at the air with their claws, snapped their heads from side to side in exaggerated vigilance and howled as if to raise the dead. They had gathered very near the gnome’s knothole and it was reasonable to assume that one of the manic creatures would quickly spy the wee one. The gnome didn’t wait.

            “Git!” the gnome shouted.

            As one, the werewolves stiffened and wheeled to face the diminutive threat clad in gold. As one, their blazing eyes bulged a magnitude wider. And then totally unexpectedly, as one, they took a step back.

            “Git!” the gnome repeated as he plucked another whisker and held it gingerly out from the knothole. Collectively, the quieted werewolves retreated a few more steps, and, when the gnome let its whisker fall, the entire pack fled into the Wold without a snarl or howl.

            After a few moments, he climbed down from his perch in the upper branches and looked into the knothole. “Impressive,” he told the gnome whose steely-eyed expression had not altered. “May I ask your secret?”

            In answer the gnome nodded at the base of the tree where it’d dropped its whiskers. He crouched to get a closer look and was surprised to find not whiskers, but wriggling white worms. He picked one up and stood facing the gnome once more. “A neat trick, but hardly one to terrorize the average or, in this case, not so average werewolf.”

            “Yer the Keeper’s man, are ya not?”

            He decided not make an issue of this breach of propriety. The gnome, if not saving him from actual harm, had prevented a long delay in his reaching Old Mortapolis which was just as important. “I am. Thank you for your help and interest. Now about the worms—“

            “Are ya the Sourcerer?”

            This question was far beyond the breach of propriety, but something about the gnome’s steadfast gaze and the otherwise ridiculous gold jacket kept his temper in check. “I go by Sosh. And you?”

            “Been called a lotta things.” The gnome considered for a moment. “I’ll answer to ya callin’ me Tweed.”

            “Fair enough, Tweed. So, what’s with these whisker worms of yours.”

            For the first time, the gnome gave the hint, however slight, of a smile. “That’s a bad bug yer holdin’, Sourcerer.”

            “I’d prefer being called Sosh, please.”

            “Okay, Sourcerer Sosh, to answer yar query, if ya were a werewolf, that worm would already been burrowing into yer bristly hide. Ya’d be needin’ the GDs by mornin’.”

            “But those were no ordinary werewolves. Nothing sanctioned by the Keeper.”

            “True enough. Ya musta heard of Rumor. This is his doing. Rumor’s been hacking together some kind of next-gen mutant. I’ve had my dealin’s with ‘em before. That’s why they bolted when they seen me golden togs. They seen me pluck that whisker and thought they could get away, but they’d already been infected by the one’s I’d dropped just before they got here.”

            “So, they’ll be no more by morning.” Sosh eyed the wriggling worm closely.

            “I don’t fancy them critters in my forest.”

            “Yes, your Wold is very ‘lovely, dark and deep’ if I may steal a turn of phrase,” Sosh said while turning an appreciative circle and taking in the depth and diversity of the forest. “That’s also a powerful parasite you’ve got growing from your chin. Your idea, too, Tweed?”

            The gnome’s slight smile grew but in a way that deflected any sense of ego and pointed to some greater inner satisfaction. Sosh suspected he was dealing with an increasingly rare occurrence in Necronia: a meeting of like minds. “Will I be needing the Grave Diggers by morning, Tweed?”

            “Are ya a mutant werewolf?”

            “I could never be hungry enough to eat the likes of you.”

            “Then rest easy, Sourcerer.”

            Rest. Sosh had a sudden inspiration and the need to get to Old Mortapolis doubled in its importance. “Thank you again, Tweed. May I take this worm as your calling card?”

            “Ya may be needin’ the likes of it again, Sourcerer. Give my regards to the Keeper.”

            “I will indeed, Tweed,” Sosh responded as he headed up the path quickening his pace and gently placing the worm in an outer coat pocket. “I will indeed.”

* * * *

As he often did after a simple dinner, Morton, despite his cold, went for a walk in the cemetery. As always he wore his heavy black overcoat, white muffler and his distinctive black bowler. At the entrance, he stopped and ritually read aloud the inscription carved deeply into the age-old granite archway: Rest and Remember.

            Simple words. Possibly trite. Yet, Morton wholeheartedly believed this to be the proper approach. First rest and then remember. It didn’t always work the other way around. Remembering first could lead you down too many paths, to too many tangents, too many worries that would never provide one that much-needed rest. The worn inscription at the threshold was his reminder. Rest first.

            This in mind, he headed straight for The Requiem. The quickest route was through the Pet Cemetery. It both cheered and saddened him to see the row upon row of fanciful headstones often bedecked with pet toys and clothing. On many visits he would see owners, young and old, standing or kneeling near a grave site with a bag of doggie biscuits or a small carton of milk and a cat dish. To Morton, these were rituals that helped keep memories alive and uphold those loyalties that transcended death. He never failed to notice how bright and well maintained the pet graves were. As he passed the row of flowering dogwoods that marked the Pet Cemetery boundary, he wished it was so for all the dead here.

            Continuing along the hard-packed gravel path that made no sound nor left any footprints, he began to see the detritus that had become the trademark of the veteran’s memorial. Empty cartridges of all calibers, old boots, even helmets and especially the flags. Flags that were shredded, some trampled, some stuck upside down in the flowers beds, looking as if someone had taken a bayonet to them. Elsewhere, the raw graffiti filled Morton with an intense heartsickness. Vile words of condemnation were scrawled over beautiful inscriptions describing the sacrifices and bravery of those soldiers remembered here.

            To Morton, the greatest villainy appeared at the graceful glass blocks that formed a towering star and signified the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The monument was cleverly designed to transmit colored lights through the glass blocks, but its genius was the blocks also became pictures of fallen soldiers who had served from throughout the world and throughout history.

            It was a fitting, even poetic, tribute, yet the same miscreants who continued to use the Veterans Memorial as venue for their personal and political gripes and who brazenly littered and vandalized the grounds had managed to hack the monument so that the pictures displayed were not those of the thousands who had served. They had been replaced with uploaded images of horrific civilian deaths. Morton hesitated at the monument, but did not allow himself to stop and try to clean up. He could do that on his way back. First, to the amphitheater and some rest. He would not soon forget this scene, but he needed some down time to think the situation through more clearly.

            Despite the inherent novelty of a musical venue in the midst of cemetery, Morton was a bit surprised to see how crowded The Requiem had grown since his last visit. The great amphitheatre with arcing tiers cut into the gentle hillside had become blanketed with headstones, most of which were now serving as backrests for the hundreds of visitors assembling to listen to the concert. Morton made his way through the festive scene, grateful that, though the visitors here were abuzz and animated in their pre-concert anticipation, The Requiem had none of the detritus and filth-laden propaganda that had defaced the Veteran’s Memorial. He found himself a seat under a lone chestnut tree that afforded both a sweeping view and a bit of isolation since the spiky chestnut casings kept many from taking a seat there. Morton, though, did not mind clearing away a few chestnuts for a bit of privacy. He settled in with his back against the tree trunk and waited for the music to begin.

            He did not know what would be played, but he had never been disappointed before. Whoever selected the nightly programs seemed to be a kindred spirit of Morton’s. All the programs were strictly instrumental music. All types of instruments were game, and he could rarely recognize the source material for many of the pieces. What he knew of the music, though, was what he felt. It was truly ethereal. Not weighty or ponderous. It was airy, light, the very essence of weightlessness. He could so easily drift in this music, like a boat down a lazy river. Morton waited for it to come, and then he could rest.

            Rest in peace. A nice thought, even for the living.

* * * *

Besides being difficult to find and with ever-increasing dangers along the way, Old Mortapolis was a bugger to enter. The premier city of the dead was better fortified than any city of the living had ever been.

            Sosh was unerringly loyal to the Keeper and his vision of greater Necronia, but he did not always agree with some of the finer details of the vast enterprise’s operations. Like having to find the entrance each time he was compelled to visit Old Mortapolis. It seemed almost demeaning to have to search around the massive towers whose very heft was meant to intimidate—the Greco grey stone intended to be the immortal monument to man’s flimsy flesh. Maybe that was the Keeper’s point, thought Sosh, the living aren’t meant to enter, only the eternal know the password, only the dead hold the key.

            The sudden inspiration nagged at him. Maybe he shouldn’t let others call him the Sourcerer as Tweed that feisty golden gnome had done. If he second guessed the Keeper, wasn’t he just like the one who’d left the challenge at the troll’s lair? Was he actually beginning to believe in the reality of Rumor?

            Sosh wouldn’t let himself go there. He had to warn the Keeper, but that meant he had to find him first—and that could only be done by going to the Keep which was the very heart of Old Mortapolis. He had to find the way in quickly. He’d done it before; in fact he believed he’d been the first, though that may have been more of his own myth making when the Keeper had dubbed him Sourcerer and made him privy to many of the secrets of Necronia. Often, Sosh had to remind himself, he really did not know the Keeper at all well and so much of what he believed him to be was inferred from the spirit and form of Necronia itself.

            But all that meant little, if he could not find the shifting entrance to Old Mortapolis. He stepped back from the wall. It stretched to the thick clouds that always hung over the city like its own eternal shroud. Always before, the Keeper had provided tantalizing clues, as if reaching out, wanting to find a confidant: one who was worthy and could pass the gauntlet he set forth. The puzzles provided had been mind-numbingly difficult, time consuming, but he always found a way to crack the Keeper’s code.       Now, Sosh was coming unbidden, troubled by a multitude of problems plaguing the land of the dead and certain that a new and focused force meant to usurp the Keeper and pillage his kingdom. Aside from the message left in the troll’s blood, the mutant werewolves were the clearest evidence of this insurgent force. If that kind of power were concentrated and unleashed in a coordinated way, the dominoes could fall, rapidly bringing down all the Keeper had created.

            Mutant werewolves. The recollection of his recent run-in with the bizarre creatures gave Sosh an inspiration. Sosh patted his jacket pocket. He took out the little worm that had been Tweed’s whisker. He recounted the gold-clad gnome’s old world voice: “Give me regards to the Keeper.”

            Sosh couldn’t see why not to give it a try. He placed the worm at the base of the mighty wall and watched it carefully. It wriggled some and then became still. A minute became two and Sosh picked up the worm and placed it on a slight protrusion in the wall itself. Same result: no result. There had to be some special property in this little creature. Just a short time ago, he’d witnessed the look of panic in the mutant werewolves’ eyes, and he’d seen the steely certainty in the gnome’s. A sudden thought struck Sosh, and he mulled it over for a few moments. It certainly wouldn’t be the stupidest thing he’d ever tried. What the hell, it could only kill him, and that wasn’t exactly the end of the world—though, right now, it would be damn inconvenient.

            He picked the worm off the wall and popped it into his mouth.

            The effect was akin to dying, though strangely unemotional. Sosh felt a swift loss of focus followed by disorienting movement and sound and then a slow pixelating disembodiment. Finally, his floating senses perceived a dark, yawning opening that slowly, glacially so, resolved into a Pizza Hut box—an empty one. He screamed.

* * * *

Rest and Remember. Morton tried hard to let his mind relax as the music from the amphitheater filled the space around him so gloriously that he physically felt its presence like a breeze trying to lift him. The disconcerting thoughts of the last few days, the terrible state of the Veterans Memorial and the hard, hard memories from his deeply buried past, pushed back against the music. The two pressures vied, but it was the present that won out. Morton slept.

            However, in his sleep, a memory awakened and robbed him of any rejuvenating rest. He was standing beside a grave, newly dug, pungent and meaningful. A fresh and clear morning in early summer framed the scene: a casket being lowered, final words of prayer being said, a sparse collection of onlookers and funeral home workers. Morton stood inside the dream and was amazed at the detail. Not just the footprints in the base of the piled dirt discreetly covered that would soon backfill the grave, he could make out the intricacies of the tread and even a logo from the boots. Insects zipped about fallen chestnut casings, and one black and yellow bumblebee meandered around the edge of the grave alighting on blades of grass drooping heavily over the edge of the abyss.

            This dream was the dream. The one Morton revered and the one he feared. It was the nexus of past and present. It had helped pacify his grief, and it was what sent him to the cemetery almost every day since he had watched her casket lowered into the ground so neatly cut away. His dream centered on her grave, never her face, and the dream always stalled when he looked deep into the open earth as if to find her staring back at him. There began and ended his nightmare. He could not remember her face, not a wink or a smile, not a pout or a profile. And thus her existence had become that symmetrical block of removed earth, an open door that Morton was forever peering in, a door where there was nowhere to knock, a door never to be answered.

* * * *

Sosh’s panicked scream, after the fact, felt foolish and highly unprofessional. It was disconcerting, though, to see something so foreign to Old Mortapolis as a pizza box. That kind of relic was from a completely different life. He picked up the box that was so out of place on the roughly cobbled street that gave the dead city such a comfortable Old World feel. Alleys ran off in every direction full of shops that had never seen shoppers. Inns that had never housed guests. Homes that had never been lived in. Old Mortapolis was the ultimate ghost town—it even lacked ghosts.

            Though Sosh had wandered these streets and alleys before with the permission of the Keeper, he had never been here alone. Before, the Keeper had always summoned him, and he always met him outside the Keep which dominated the interior of the walled city. The Keep was a thick tower that rose even higher than the surrounding city walls.

            Now, still a bit disoriented by his method of entry and by the strangeness of the pizza box, Sosh looked around to locate the Keep. He found its imposing form behind him and turned to head that way. As he did, he kicked the pizza box. He was tempted to leave it there on the street, but that didn’t seem right, so he reached down to pick it up, and when he did the writing on the inside of the lid became partly visible. He flung open the box and there, just as it had been written in the troll’s blood on the ledge of the Gulch, was the uninspired warning: Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers

            Had the insidious Rumor infiltrating Necronia really found its way into Old Mortapolis? He hoped he had enough time now to warn the Keeper. Sosh quickly closed the lid, tucked the pizza box under his arm and ran towards the looming Keep.

* * * *

Waking from the all too familiar nightmare and unable to shake the dread that had dogged him the last few weeks, Morton left The Requiem before the concert was over. He went down the backside of the hill that formed the amphitheater and this track led him into what had come to be known as The Digs. A vast sprawl of gravesites had been pre-prepared, some with lush tropical vegetation, towering redwoods or cacti, some with massive marble or blindingly polished aluminum mausoleums. Morton didn’t quite know what to make of this unseemly sprawl, though he felt that people even in their death should be concerned about good taste. Eternity was a long time, especially when you were buried in what could pass for an Airstream travel trailer.

            Just past The Digs was Center. It wasn’t the exact center of the cemetery, but it had become the defacto hub of the vast grounds. One had to have made a great contribution to the living to have a memorial in Center. It was a place of refined beauty and respectful consideration.

            Morton, as was his norm, paid his respects to Socrates, Ben Franklin, Madame Curie, Woodrow Wilson. Their memorials were well cared for and immaculate, but as he neared the last stop on his usual route, he could see from afar that someone had defaced the one monument with which he felt a very strong connection. He approached the simple bronze bust that was centered on a large alabaster block with a series of rotors carved in relief. Across the bleached white of the gypsum, the statement Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers was boldly written in red. Morton looked up from this very intentional graffiti to the bust of Allen Turing whose always enigmatic face took on an even more haunted look.

            He hesitated. His first reaction was to remove the graffiti, but that would take away valuable time. Morton knew he was being pushed into action, yet he dreaded the confrontation. Staring at the defaced monument to a personal hero, he considered what action to take, but he was shaken. This anxiety, this fear, bothered him most of all. He, of all people, should not be rattled by anything that happened in the cemetery. No Rumor large or small should be capable of causing this much destruction.  Still, Morton was very spooked. The lord and master of the dead, Necronia’s all-powerful Encryption Keeper was indeed spooked.

            He had been intending to walk all the way to Old Mortapolis, but seeing that time was now of the utmost essence, Morton leaned back from his computer in his dreary little townhouse, stared out his bedroom widow into the drizzling darkness for a moment, and then, his fingers racing over the keyboard, initiated the code that would bring his avatar flying at the speed of 1s and 0s into the impervious stronghold of his digital Keep.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

* * * *

“Do you know the user who did this, Keeper?” Sosh asked while holding the Pizza Hut box open so that Morton could see the bright red warning inside.

            “Sit down and have some tea, Sourcerer.” Morton had let Sosh into the Keep upon his arrival just moments before. “We need to talk and figure this out.” He directed his bowler-topped avatar to put the iron kettle on the tripod that always straddled the perfectly behaved flames in the fireplace of the Keep’s only gathering place. A room that was a comfortable cross between the medieval and Victorian: a rough hewn stone floor, elaborately carved wainscoting, warm velvet chairs and thickly brocaded curtains bordering one tall, narrow window. A large tapestry that depicted Dante’s Inferno dominated the inner wall. It was the only room in the entire Keep that Morton used.

            Sosh had his lanky avatar in the flowing blue robe take a seat near a table with a small and elegant urn that held a single snowy chrysanthemum. The flower was beautifully rendered as was the urn. Sosh knew how much time objects like that took to code in order to have that realism.

            On his monitor, he watched the Keeper preparing the tea, and realized that he was actually very thirsty. He got up from his computer and fetched a can of iced tea from his refrigerator, returning to his monitor just as the Keeper poured him a steaming cup on screen. Sosh directed his Sourcerer to take a drink, and then he took a big swig of his iced tea before typing his now heartfelt response, “Thanks, Keeper. I needed that.”

            “You’re most welcome.” The Keeper took a seat and they drank their tea as the fire’s predictable crackling and randomly simulated flare ups brought a measure of satisfaction that extended well beyond their liquid crystal displays. Finally, the Keeper asked what had prompted the Sourcerer’s visit and Sosh told him in detail about the growing vermin of spiders, rats and bats, about the troll and the message left there—the same as on the pizza box. Finally, Sosh described the next-gen werewolves and the strange effect of Tweed’s virus-like whiskers.

            “Tweed.” The Keeper mused. “I haven’t seen him around here in months, though I enjoy wandering in his Wold. What does he look like these days?”

            “A bit like a garden gnome from a Vegas nightclub.”

            “Still sporting gold?”

            “Like it was denim.”

            The Keeper’s avatar stood and moved to the hearth. He held his hands out to the flames which would never warm him, then turned and focused on the lone chrysanthemum that he could never smell nor touch. His voice lowered to an eight-point Times New Roman whisper, “I think it’s time to meat.”

            “Meat?” Sosh was nonplussed.

            “You, me and Tweed.”

            “Meatspace. You’re serious. Meeting in person seems so desperate.”

            Morton paused over his keyboard considering the Sourcerer’s response. “Despair built Necronia. Maybe desperation can save it.”

* * * *

They met as only those who have no idea who they are looking to meet can: by hovering and trying to look purposeful. The three stood out in the busy hospital cafeteria where all those around them were consumed with their own cares. Morton, Sosh and Tweed moved in unchoreographed awkwardness to a table on the periphery. Their eyes each trying to take in what they had abdicated in Necronia: their humanness. Crossing the uncanny valley of their online avatars to this too mortal flesh was a shock from which they had worked hard to spare themselves.

            And, yet, Morton noted how like their avatars they appeared. Tweed was short and stout. He wore a tweed jacket and corduroy pants that were a burnished bronze color. Not quite gold, but not that far off. The Sourcerer was young, tall, somewhat gangly and wore a hooded sweatshirt. Morton wondered how they viewed him. The Encryption Keeper, Lord and Master of Necronia, here in a hospital cafeteria, a plain-faced, balding, middle aged man with the sniffles and watery eyes. The irony gave him the courage to smile broadly as he reached out to shake their hands.

            “Thanks for coming. I’m Morton, and I think it wise we keep last names out of it.”

            “Jack Tweed. And I don’t give a damn who knows it,” said Tweed extending his bear paw of a hand.

            “I’m Sosh. Honored to meet you both, though I’d prefer to call you Keeper and Tweed. It just helps me keep things straight.”

            They sat at a table. It was incumbent on Morton to begin. He had asked them to meet in meatspace, flesh and blood, hail and hearty human interaction, so old school. It was just such a different dynamic. Looking people in the eye, seeing their imperfections, giving up control. That was the kicker. Control. The real world had no one like the Keeper (you could give God his due, but His ways were analog) who was the final arbiter in Necronia. Online, one had to believe in a system, adopt a vision and then control it. Each of the three at the table felt in control in Necronia. Not so in the realm of their living, breathing brethren.

            Morton blew his nose, apologized and began talking to the tissues in his hands. “I sincerely wish we did not have to be here. I’m not good at this kind of thing. I tend to lose my thread, or it loses me. I’m like a tailor that doesn’t understand seam allowance—”

            “Get on with it, Morton. I’ll keep you focused,” Tweed interrupted.

            “Yes, that’s appreciated. I’m much better speaking through my keyboard.”

            “You’re doing fine,” said Sosh.

            “Right. I need help. Necronia began with the simple idea. An idea of a virtual burial. It became what it is today, because death, remembering, honoring, grieving—that’s special to us, to humans.” He gestured to the two men across the table as if to remind them all that they weren’t a fabrication of ones and zeros. “It is fundamental. All humans know and participate in death on some level throughout their lives. Necronia grew because it served a need, and I wished to serve those in need.”

            “It’s a pretty speech.”

            “I’ll get on with it, Tweed,” he said feeling a new certainty in the realization that he had a history with these two or, at least, their avatars. His words came more easily—almost as if he were typing and not talking. “You two know more about Necronia and especially Old Mortapolis than any other users. What you don’t know is that, though much of Necronia was built on open source software that I initially designed and you,” he nodded to Sosh, “so marvelously stepped in and made more functionally elegant, a great deal of the cemetery is encrypted.”

            “I’ve done some poking around,” said Tweed. “You’re good. Sometimes, I actually think I’m getting close to cracking one of your codes, and I realize you’ve led me in a circle. Usually, an amusingly diverting circle, though I’m never closer to your root level program.Your nomenclature would try Nostradamus’s patience.”

            “Actually,” explained Morton, “I’m more Delphic in my approach to cryptography. But, Tweed, you’ve gotten further than any one else, other than Sosh here who I’ve provided from time to time with a few clues.”

            Morton met their eyes for a few quick heartbeats which was not an easy thing for him to do. “You both know as well as I do that Necronia has been under assault by some coder who has messed with the vision and spirit of the cemetery. Pranks, graffiti, vandalism, nefarious avatars that deter or harass genuine visitors. These actions tend to encourage some hackers who are beginning to view the site as some new playground or a kind of Facebook for the dead.

            But, Necronia is not a social networking site. It is not a chat room, blog or political forum. It is about remembering. It is about respect. You understand that. But someone is trying to co-opt Necronia.”

            “Why is that, Keeper?” Tweed asked as he gazed steadily at Morton. Even Sosh leaned in closer.

            Morton had called them here. He knew he would tell them, but he hadn’t known if he would tell them the whole story until Tweed raised the ante by asking, “Would it have to do with a certain chrysanthemum?”

            Morton’s eyes widened the faintest bit, but that was all, and he was surprised that Tweed’s question hadn’t knocked him off his chair. Unlike, Sosh, who’d been in the Keep and seen the single, precious white flower, Tweed had never—at least to Morton’s tracking software—been there, though Morton now assumed Tweed knew enough to hack in on his own.

            Tweed had played a strong hand, so Morton decided to turn his own cards up. “It all started with Chrys. Over ten years ago. Just a name in a chat room. Someone who became a friend. A close friend. You two must certainly know how it goes. A few weeks and months online and you feel like your soulmate is just on the other side of that flickering monitor. That’s how Chrys felt to me. We even exchanged letters through snail mail. It seemed more traditional. More permanent. That we were willing to wait for each other. I even found the courage to call. It wasn’t like my usually cryptic interactions. It was easy. Just as this is somehow easy for me.

            “After half a year, we arranged to meet. A few days before I was to fly across the country to finally see her. A letter came. It was from her brother. He was kind. Explained her death. Apologized for not knowing how to better inform me. He included her funeral arrangements.

            “I went. I saw her gravesite. Her headstone.” Morton bowed his head just slightly. “That is how Necronia started. I programmed the Keep and Old Mortapolis as a place to store my memories. I couldn’t travel across the country every time I wanted to pay my respects to her grave, so I began building the cemetery. I invited her brother to see the site, and he told others. That’s how it all began.

            ”You’ve seen how the concept of a virtual cemetery has grown. How so many users have created such personal and lasting tributes to the departed they care about. You’ve also seen many of the problems. You’ve helped me manage some of them. But the one problem that has defied our management is Rumor.”

            Sosh nodded and Tweed hands went to his lapels.

            “Rumor has spread that there are unmarked graves, tombs, crypts, barrows, mausoleums throughout Necronia that hold some kind of treasure. That very personal information–information that was intended to die with the deceased was being buried in these hidden sites. Rumor has dubbed me the Encryption Keeper, saying that I greedily hold the keys to unlocking this morbid wealth.”

            Tweed broke in and his question was as forceful as his steely stare. “But is it true?”

            Morton chose his next words carefully. “Truth can be a bit of a moving target. There are places in greater Necronia that are off limits, like Old Mortapolis, though visitors who hazard the journey can make it to the walls. But, up until now, they have been unable to enter—without my help. That’s why other users built New Mortapolis for all their virtual burial needs. I have no problem with that. Users with no coding skills can acquire the scripts, widgets, plug-ins, etc. to build their gravesite or they can hire someone to do the work. Those kind of virtual economies are impossible to suppress and, as in the real world, there is a viable funeral marketplace.

            “My guiding principle for Necronia as a restful place to remember those who have died begins and ends with respect. To that end I have worked to eliminate the possibility of commercialization and which has made me unpopular with digital mercenaries. My use of stereotypical graveyard ghouls to police Necronia has a satisfying irony to it, but it is necessary to keep out vandals. I’ve also tried to avoid users from over-politicizing someone’s death. Both these are serious threats to the spirit of Necronia, but Rumor’s knowledge that the cemetery is a repository of secrets buried with the dead could destroy it.”

            Tweed reasserted his question. “But is Rumor to be believed?”

            Morton lost his momentary fluency and cast furtive glances at Tweed and Sosh. He shifted uneasily in his chair, until Sosh rescued him. “Trust us, Keeper. You know where we stand.”

            “You must understand that this isn’t just about the three of us.” Morton looked around the bustling cafeteria. So many here at the hospital weighing life and death decisions every day. This was real. Did his concerns over the future of a virtual graveyard really matter all that much? Could the information he held really do serious damage to living flesh and blood? Maybe he’d become more avatar than man.

            “Okay. The truth. Rumor is right. As Necronia’s reputation grew on the Internet, I started to receive inquiries from users interested in developing a gravesite that would only be visible to those who had been given a password. I saw many valid reasons for doing this and began granting these requests. Then a request came from a user that offered to make a rather sizeable donation to the site, if I would encrypt his crypt, so to speak, in such a way that it would be impregnable, impregnable until twenty years from the day of his death. Then the site would be revealed to any user and its contents would be not only viewable, but also downloadable.”

            Both Sosh and Tweed gaped at Morton’s confession. “I assumed, maybe naively so, that this first request came from a musician, or an artist, or photographer, or possibly a writer. It had a certain allure. And I did it. After that, I’ve had hundreds of requests a year, and I’ve granted them all. Donations are what have kept Necronia from being threatened by commercialization. These encrypted graves have paid the bills.”

            “A tidy sum you’ve made,” Tweed said.

            Morton actually laughed. “Most mausoleums in Necronia are nicer than my townhouse. You can believe what you want, but paying tribute to the dead is what I live for.”

            “Keeper, I understand why you did what you did,” said Sosh. “But I’m not sure I see what is so detrimental about a few users with encrypted graves.”

            “That was my way of thinking initially, until I started giving some serious thought to what information might be going into these encrypts as I began calling them. What if ‘taking your secrets to the grave’ now meant they could be resurrected a few years after death? Imagine confessions of murder, unfaithfulness, robbery, your whole seven deadly sins being left there for whatever motive: to set the record straight, for protection, for blackmail. Then what about state secrets? What about illicit activities?

            “You see, all of these requests have been anonymous. I don’t know who is going to be ‘buried’ or with what secrets.”

            “But, you’re the Keeper,” Sosh broke in. “You must have some way to see those files.”

            Morton smiled broadly. “Unfortunately, I know myself too well. I didn’t want to be tempted, so I encrypted my encryption process.”

            “You what?” Tweed asked.

            “It was a bit like wearing a blindfold as I built and then dismantled a bridge. It worked, but don’t ask me to explain those few months of my life.”

            “I’ve got one more question then,” Sosh said. “Why has this user who calls himself Rumor been so aggressive in Necronia. Why give himself away by posting that Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers message around?”

            “Rumor named himself aptly. That’s what rumors do. They spread and they get more aggressive. That’s their power. Other users become the unwitting helpers. They start questioning, digging, assuming, and soon you have increasing mayhem. Ultimately, rumors destroy respect. If that should happen then Necronia will no longer be a place to rest and remember.”

            “He shoulda called himself Flame, if he’s an old school user,” said Tweed.

            “Indeed, Tweed.” Morton quipped and then added, “By the way, do know how much fun that is to say?”

            “You wouldn’t be the first. So what do we do with our flaming Rumor?”

            “We put him out.”

            “Well, that’s not gonna happen with bad puns,” Tweed said, his thin smile returning.

            “You’re right about that and time has become a factor because Rumor has made it into Old Mortapolis, as Sosh can tell you. That is not an easy trick and it testifies to his resourcefulness. However, he hasn’t been able to penetrate into the Keep. And that’s very good because that’s the only place any of my codes can be cracked.”

            “How’s that possible?” Sosh asked.

            “All of Necronia started with the Keep. It’s analogous to the starting point on a treasure map that tells you to start at the base of the crooked palm tree and go twenty paces due west. Without being at that starting point, the map is worthless. Any possibility of breaking into the encrypted graves starts with the Keep.”

            “So, it’s just a matter of keeping Rumor out it,” Sosh said and Tweed nodded in agreement.

            “Actually, fellow Necronians, I believe the answer is to invite him in.”

* * * *

Even Tweed had never heard the Wold so quiet. It was as if the massive servers that processed all the data that comprised greater Necronia sensed the weather turning and were spinning down their hard drives to await the storm. Tweed was back in the knothole of his oak tree, his gnome suit as golden as many of the new fallen leaves on the forest floor. To him it was a pleasure to wait among his trees. He’d spent his entire adult life creating and admiring computer-generated views like this. He couldn’t see the point in physically traveling the world when he’d been able to create the Wold as his own.

            That was why he was willing to help the Keeper. You had to admire his vision and commitment, not to mention his programming prowess. Someday, Tweed considered as he scanned the forest before him, he might have a go at his own digital world. Not trees next time. He smoothed down his golden jacket and smiled, ever so thinly, as visions of a Virtual Vegas percolated in his cone-capped head.

            The first distant howls snapped Tweed out of his sin city reverie. Quickly the howls spread and grew into a shrieking chorus as the werewolves neared. Tweed calmly began plucking whiskers from his snowy chin.

            The werewolves continued to howl as they surrounded Tweed’s position, but they left a wide perimeter around his tree. Tweed noted that all these next-gen werewolves had puffy boots on. That was a scene to behold. Werewolves in moonboots. Even in the virtual world some things went beyond ridiculous. Suddenly, the werewolves quieted as a vaporous trail crept among them. The mist roiled and billowed around the gnome’s tree and then slowly coalesced into a large but wispy form directly in front of Tweed. The form was ragged and ghostly with a definite skull-like appendage. The entire form was translucent except for two black-hole eyes that were piercing in their emptiness.

            “Rumor has it that yer looking fer something that belongs to the Keeper,” Tweed said to those depthless eyes.

            The amorphous Rumor widened its ever-dark eyes and replied in a soft and sonorous voice that Tweed did not really expect, “Indeed, Tweed. And I’m sure you’re here to help.” The amorphous creature produced a thin whisp of a hand with palm turned up.

            “And who would I be helpin’?”

            “That depends on what you believe.”

            “Well,” Tweed began, “I don’t believe I care fer what ya have in mind for Necronia, so I’ll tell ya what I’ve told yer hairball friends afore.” He held out his small hand filled with his whiskers. “Git!”

            The werewolves collectively backed up a step or two, but Rumor wafted even closer to Tweed. The gnome took a big breath and blew his handful of whiskers straight into the ghostly eyes. Instead, of dodging the virus laden strands, Rumor leaned into the onslaught, its hands funneling the already wriggling critters into its form.

            “Perfect, Tweed! Just the help I needed. Now let’s add a little flash and sparkle to that fine suit of yours.” Rumor’s form quickly took on a vibrant orange hue and just as quickly that hue spread to the leaves beneath it and onto Tweed’s tree. The conflagration was napalm explosive and the gnome’s tree burst like a rocket gone awry, the wooden shards flying through Rumor and forcing the werewolves to cower behind their outlying trees.

            As the giant flames subsided, Rumor swept among the werewolves and forced one of Tweed’s whiskers down their cringing maws. When he finished he turned back to the epicenter of the blast just in time to see Tweed’s golden cone finish its mile-high tumble from Necronia’s now blackened sky.          

* * * *

The Sourcerer paced outside the Keep. He should’ve been worrying about his part in the Keeper’s plan, but he couldn’t keep his mind off the Pizza Hut box he’d found on his last trip into Old Mortapolis. He stared at the box. Rumor must have some sense of humor if he could play on that common hacker stereotype. They probably weren’t that very different. Two guys playing their self-created roles in a virtual world.

            At his keyboard in his one-bedroom apartment, Sosh, paused for a moment. It was that disembodied recognition of self. He was watching himself be the Sourcerer. Such an odd sensation to think of reality as someone or something else’s game or construct. It was both unsettling and majestic. It was also very distracting which is why he suddenly found himself facing a pack of next-gen werewolves leaping from a shimmering mist that had materialized a stone’s throw away.

            The werewolves quickly surrounded the Sourcerer, but they did not attack. They waited with fangs and claws flashing while the Rumor mist condensed into its ghoulish form and spoke. “I didn’t think the Keeper liked company in Old Mortapolis, Sourcerer.”

            “He doesn’t particularly care for some of the garbage that makes it in here,” the Sourcerer said as he tossed the Pizza Hut box Frisbee-style. It sailed through Rumor’s wispy form and was caught by one of the werewolves in its jaws. The creature quickly shredded it.

            “Finders Keepers?” Rumor asked.

            “Losers Weepers,” Sourcerer replied.

            “Get the Keeper out here so we can finish this!” Rumor commanded.

            “Let me call him for you.” The Sourcerer turned towards the Keep and began to sing:                               

Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do. I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!

            A tremendous roar rose from behind the Keep as the troll from the Gulch heard the familiar tune. With heavy footsteps that shook the cobblestones and caused the werewolves to move defensively into packs, the troll appeared with a heavy club in one hand and a twenty foot long iron pike in the other. In three deceptively quick strides, the troll was on the vanguard of the werewolves and swinging freely with his club and pike. The troll undercut the werewolves’ legs with a swipe of the long pike and then pummeled the fallen creatures with the club.

            The werewolves were outmatched until Rumor swirled himself around the troll. The raging creature could no longer see clearly and it gave the werewolves a chance to regroup. They adopted a claw, bite and retreat strategy that began to shred the troll’s poor legs. Sosh had seen enough and, at his keyboard, he executed a macro command that sent the troll back to his lair on the Gulch and awarded it 50 health units for its trouble.

            With the troll gone, Rumor turned once again to the Sourcerer. “We can do this all day. I can have them pull Old Mortapolis apart stone by stone. It’s what they’re programmed for. I can do to you what I did to your gnome boy—if that’s what you want.”

            ‘What did you do to him, Rumor?”

            In answer, Rumor materialized Tweed’s golden hat and set it on the ground before the Sourcerer. Sosh stared at the hat on his computer screen. He knew what the Keeper’s plan was, but he couldn’t focus on it. That hat like his own flowing robes represented years of experience. Avatars like theirs were so powerful in Necronia because they had logged so much time, created so much code; they were unique and irreplaceable. Sosh knew he was about to improvise in a way that the Keeper wouldn’t like, but he was going to kick Rumor’s overconfident butt right back to days of Fortran. 

             His finger’s flew over the keyboard and just as he was about to execute the command that would make Rumor the equivalent of a Java script stick figure, his monitor froze and then went black. Dead black. He was cut off from Necronia for the first time in six years. He slumped back in his chair, dug some change out of his pocket, put two coins over his eyes, and for the first time in a very long time prayed.

* * * *

Morton watched it play out. Saw on his monitor Tweed’s forlorn cap a few paces in front of the Sourcerer’s frozen form. Rumor had used fire on Tweed and ice on the Sourcerer. His path to the Keep was now cleared and already the howling werewolves were at its walls clawing at the virtual stones. There was no visible door into the structure, only one tall window mid-way up the formidable structure. From his townhouse computer, Morton instructed his avatar to perform the complicated moves that would open it.

            The Keeper stuck his head out and called down, “Rumor, I’m ready to talk. You can come in this way.”

            Rumor immediately lifted his form and coalesced very near the Keeper. “Please leave the window open as a gesture of good will,” he said.

            “Good will?” scoffed the Keeper. “What do you know of good will? Necronia isn’t some kind of game one tries to win. It’s important to people as a sacred place. You’re trying to undermine that.”

            “Not exactly, Keeper. You’ve made Necronia valuable. Tombs have always had their raiders. It’s no different than the pyramids. You build something that formidable and you naturally attract attention. Grave robbing is an old and fashionably dishonorable profession. If you bury valuable things with the dead, a Rumor like me is bound to circulate. So, here I am.”

            “Yes, now what?”

            “I want access to a few of your encrypted graves.”

            “And if I refuse?”

            The wispy form with the depthless eyes seemed to smirk as his vaporous avatar split into two. “I’ve got another Rumor just waiting to go here. It’s an interesting Rumor involving a middle aged man driving a younger woman, a much younger woman, you might even say she was just a child beginning to flower—,” Rumor’s two forms pointed identical skeletal fingers at the vase with the single chrysanthemum, “—to a gruesome suicide. A sick and horrible Internet romance that ended with predictable tragedy. Does that sound like a Rumor that the Keeper of Necronia would like to battle?”

            “You would try to destroy the very heart of Necronia? A sacred remembrance. How can any deal I make with you ever restore that? It would be better to just end Necronia.”

            Rumor laughed, grimly. “And thus destroy all those other sacred remembrances. Those thousands who’ve put their trust in the Keeper. It’s not easy to be a deity, even to the dead.”

            “A deity? A god would just strike you down. I don’t have that power. I can’t even break my own encryption of those graves you want to rob.”

            “I know how you work, Keeper. Just let me into the root level of the original program. I know the source code can only be accessed through the Keep. I have resources that will take it from there.”

            The Keeper stood, his iconic bowler cupped in his hands and walked to the small table that held the lone chrysanthemum. He delicately picked up flower out of its simple urn and moved past the darkly billowing forms of Rumor to the fireplace.

            “I refuse,” he said. “I’m done living for the dead.” And so saying, he threw his bowler and the chrysanthemum into the virtual flame where they quickly caught fire.

            Nothing at all dramatic happened.

            At his desk in his small townhouse, Morton simply turned off his power supply and watched the monitor go black. It was late and he went to bed. He slept well. No beckoning graves in his dreams. No lost loves. He did not dream at all.

* * * *

Morton awoke rested and then he remembered. He dressed and caught the bus that took him near the hospital. In the basement cafeteria, Sosh and Tweed were already at a table. He ordered a coffee and smiled broadly at the matronly woman who served him. She smiled kindly back.

            When he sat down, Tweed queried, “A fine morning, Morton?”

            “Indeed, Tweed. A fine morning.”

            “Tell us now, Tweed. What happened?”

            “Much as Morton predicted. When the Keeper disappeared, Rumor began to tear the room apart. He quickly found the door behind the tapestry, but he had a helluva time getting it opened.”

            “How’d he figure it out?”

            “How would you figure it out, Sosh?” Morton asked back.

            “I would’ve thought it was the chrysanthemum, but Tweed said you burned that.”

            “You’re on the right track. I’ll give you a clue ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.’”

            “I would’ve said ‘ya need to know,’” suggested Tweed.

            “Keats would’ve allowed that I’m sure coming from a truly sylvan gnome.”

            Sosh was waving his hands in a time-out gesture. “Look, I’m not with the literati. I barely made it through Dune.”

            “It’s from John Keats ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’”

            “You mean it was the vase, the urn. I guess that’s clever. But what happened when Rumor opened the door?”

            Tweed shrugged his shoulders. “He went in. The door closed. He hasn’t come out yet.”

            “He won’t be coming out,” said Morton. He looked into his coffee before making eye contact with Tweed and Sosh again. “Any time Rumor logs into Necronia, he will be in the same dark place with a shovelful of dirt being flung into his soulless eyes. The inner Keep is like being buried alive.”

Morton took a deep breath and didn’t exhale for a ten count. “In my darkest days after Chrys’s death, that was my nightmare. The Keep was my defense against it. Against despair. The Keep wasn’t built to keep something out. It was built to keep something in—my grief.

“You see, I’ve learned that grief is analog. We’re not binary beings. We can’t partition our emotions or our feelings. We are creatures of continuous experience, and that is something Rumor and his types will never understand. He will keep trying to dig his way out of that grave with 1s and 0s, and that will always fail. My memory of Chrys is encrypted in one place only and that is my heart.”

            Tweed nodded in understanding, but Sosh appeared dazed and asked, “So, if Rumor is effectively contained or neutralized, are we back to business as usual in Necronia?”

            “It’ll take some work to clean up some of Rumor’s nastiness. I’ll be counting on your help. Both of you.”

            “Indeed?” asked Tweed.

            “Indeed,” Morton affirmed with a smile. “But for the moment, let’s talk about something else.”

            Sosh hesitated, faltering for words, “Like, like what?”

            “Like something we buried long ago,” explained the very simple man who others revered as the Encryption Keeper, the Lord and Master of Necronia and all its secret dead, “…our lives.”