Rick tried to bolt to his feet, but Hector’s grip and the still-connected implant cable kept him seated.
Hector disconnected the implant cable and before Rick understood what was happening, the older man wrapped it around Rick’s neck and pulled it tight.
“Nobody crosses me and gets away with it, you little fucker.”
Rick grunted and reached for Hector’s face, but the man was behind him. Rick couldn’t get a solid hit or a grip on him, and as the cable around his neck tightened, instinct drew his hands toward that, as he tried to loosen the makeshift noose.
Almost nothing is as scary as not being able to breathe, Ditto said.
Help! Rick shouted in his mind.
I can’t do anything to assist you in the room you’re in, aside from telling you this: find the empty mind and ignore your instincts.
Fuck! Rick thrashed in the chair, but Hector’s grip only got tighter. His heart’s rapid beating threatened to dislodge the organ from his chest. Fight my instinct?
That’s when he realized Hector’s cables were blocking his trachea, not his jugular artery. Rick positioned a finger between his skin and the cable, then another. Then he got two more fingers in on the other side. He hoped he could relieve enough pressure.
In one violent move, Rick leaned far forward, tightening the cable around his neck, but pulling Hector forward along with him. Rick spun, further constricting the cable, but yanking Hector off to the other side and creating a space between him and his former boss that exposed Hector’s hairy arms.
Rick trapped the arm, then struck the man’s elbow as his vision dimmed.
The cable’s pressure loosened. Rick struck again, and this time Hector lost his grip completely. Rick dashed backward, away from the chair, slamming his back against the SR terminal’s screen.
Hector lunged around the screen at him, but Rick got a kick up in time to stagger the older man, who then fell to one knee. Rick delivered a forward kick that would have made a high school football punter proud, knocking Hector’s head back before the momentum sent his erstwhile boss into the corner of the small room. Hector hit the floor and didn’t stir.
There was a sound of movement outside the door. How many?he asked Ditto.
No idea. I recommend you run.
No shit? Rick positioned himself on the side of the door. As the door barged open, he grabbed the goon who’d stepped halfway through and yanked him off his feet and three steps into the room, then dashed through the door. There was another heavyset man on the other side, but Rick had created enough space when he pulled the first one forward, and the heavyset man hadn’t had time to close the distance. Rick bolted through the space the man’s slow reaction time had created, and before the heavy man could lay a hand on him, he was running toward the exit.
When he got to the door, he kicked the latching mechanism as hard as he could, throwing the doors open. He’d assumed there were guards on the other side. Instead, the door only sent a few pigeons running for cover as he stepped through and got back up to speed.
Three blocks later, he let himself slow down. His elation at surviving slowly dropped away, along with the adrenaline. He’d failed. He hadn’t gotten anywhere near the top ten, let alone taken first.
He stopped and panted. What to do? Alex had turned on him, too. He hadn’t expected that. Why? She knew he was a sociopath. What kind of shit was he holding over her?
Rick took a deep breath. I’m gonna need that footage. Where is it?
I have it locked away within the game itself. I’ve disguised it as a bot attack algorithm.
Rick sighed. In a weird way, it’s about to become one. He pulled out his phone and began texting Dan Wasslinger.
Rick: We need a meeting. Right now. Your game is full of cheaters, and I think your anti-cheat bot is sentient.
Immediately, the text bubble on the other end indicated Dan was composing a response.
Dan: I agree. Meet me at the sushi restaurant. Can you make it there in an hour?
An hour? Dan had to already know something was wrong with his game.
Rick: One hour.
************************
Dan had already been seated and waiting for him when Rick entered the restaurant. He’d taken a seat facing the door two booths down. He waved as soon as he saw Rick.
The recruiter’s expression was hard to read as Rick approached and sat opposite the man. Gone was the affable smile and easy laugh of the previous meeting, but Dan’s face expressed tension and nervousness, not malice.
As soon as Rick’s ass hit the seat, Dan leaned forward.
“Man, you got screwed in that last fight.” Dan shook his head. “I’m sorry about that, truly.”
Rick squinted. He hadn’t expected an admission. “But?”
“No buts.” Dan shook his head. “You were screwed.”
Rick leaned back. “We had ten bots set against us, guided by someone I used to know.”
Dan nodded again. “We know her. Know of her. She’s hard to trace.”
Rick sighed. It wasn’t the coolheaded move, but he needed to know. “Our deal?”
Dan looked at the table.
Rick frowned. “This is do or die for me, Dan. I need this.” He paused. “I have footage.”
Dan raised his hands in a “hold on” gesture. “Look, I can’t give you everything we negotiated. I just can’t justify it, but I think—”
“The game will be a ghost town if people find out some of the shit—”
“I know, I know.” Dan nodded. “I can get you a reward for finding and reporting the problems, and there’s a lot of leeway there, money-wise, but I can’t put you on our main team.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Rick squinted. “Main team?”
Dan’s face softened in surprise. “Yeah. The main professional team. Kamizaka, Jones, Paul-Ef…” Dan’s voice trailed off and a curious look overcame him. “You don’t…” He tilted his head.
Rick waved his hand dismissively. “Of course I do.” He looked away. “I mean, sometimes.”
A look of sublime relief flashed on Dan’s face, then the salesman’s smile was back. “We can use you, and we can pay you a lot. I just can’t promise you a slot with the starters this season.”
“Housing?”
Dan squinted. “Most players stay at the player compound.”
“Hector?”
Dan shrugged. “Intellectual Property is a founding principle of the Independent Nation of California.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Rick leaned in. “He’s running more than just gaming cheats.”
Dan raised an eyebrow and began figeting with a set of chopsticks.
Rick explained about the SR speakeasy where he’d been forced to log into Ruckus Online.
Dan’s eye’s went wide. “That’s kinda over my pay grade, man.” He dropped the chopsticks to the table and leaned back, as if Rick had told a dirty joke.
Rick leaned further across the table, as if to pin the man in place so he couldn’t squirm away, invading the space Dan had tried to create between the two. “Look man, I’m trying to get back my”—he looked around the restaurant and lowered his voice—“biological property, but you can’t let what’s going on in that place keep happening if you have way to stop it.” He took a deep breath. “I’m compromised.” He looked down at the table and at his hands, which were so much less calloused than they had been way back when. “I’ve been through the system.” He looked up. “You get what I mean?”
Dan also took a deep breath, then swallowed. “It’s that bad?”
Rick nodded slowly.
Dan said, “If you need him to go to jail, it’s going to be a lot harder to get back your, uh, property.”
Rick let it sink in. “I…”
He looked at his hands. So much had been ruined by them. They’d taken a man’s life, and that, combined with his arrogance, had been such a large part of what had sunk his life. And Kristina’s life, too.
He’d wanted a family. Had they started when he was younger, before he beat a man to death in a bar, or before surgeons and doctors had permanently changed his brain, maybe it would have worked out. Now? He glanced at Dan, who looked back with an expectant expression. “Are you saying—”
“We can try, but I can’t guarantee we can secure them before the law gets involved, and once that happens…”
Hector would try to destroy evidence. The law might halt his ability to erase the illegal SR den, but he’d start destroying evidence of any other crimes as soon as he knew what he was facing, and whatever else you could say about removing Kristina’s eggs from her body without her permission, in the Independent Nation of California, it was most certainly illegal.
But the things going on at that illicit site…
“I’m willing to risk it.” He looked Dan in the eye when he said it. “I want you to try—to get the eggs, I mean—but it’s important that other shit gets stopped.” He felt a million pounds lighter as soon as he said it. Was it because it was the right thing to do, or because he’d carried that obsession with having a family for so long?
Dan nodded slowly. “I’ll get started with the cheating software stuff first. We need you to forward documentation of the exploits and how they work”—he removed a card from his pocket and slid it across the table—“to this email. As soon as we get it and check it out, you’ll get a call from the movers, as well as your new address.” He tilted his head. “I’m assuming you want an apartment in the training facility.” He narrowed his eyes. “Your wife gonna be okay with that?”
“Is the new place—”
“It’s a luxury apartment. Soundproofed. Furnished. You get food—either the cafeteria or we can send most things to your apartment, as long as it’s reasonable.”
“Beer?”
Dan smiled. “Sure, but we’re gonna notice if you go through a case of beer every few days.” He raised an eyebrow. “Anything you need to tell me?”
Rick shook his head. “Nah. I just like a beer every now and again.”
“You get medical, you get the muni ad block—she does, too,” Dan said.
“And you said I didn’t make the main team?”
Dan laughed. “That’s real luxury there, but we treat all our players well. You never know when one might rise, and if they get good, we want them to remember we were there for them when they were relatively unknown.”
Rick nodded slowly. Still, no family. He had to ask. “Kids?”
“School is on site, but”—the other man squinted—“is that something—”
Rick waved his hand, as if both raising and dismissing the idea at the same time. “Adoption, maybe.” He shook his head. “My record makes it unlikely, I know, but maybe…”
Dan’s eyes were soft, as was his smile. “I’m here to help people reach their dreams, not to squash them.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Amnesties happen.”
“Am I getting all this for my fighting ability, or because I’m helping you track down a cheating problem?”
Dan smiled. “Yes.” He raised his eyebrows, meaning the answer was likely meant to be playfully vague.
Rick nodded. It didn’t matter to him.
*****************************
The meeting had wrapped up quickly after that. Rick wandered Los Angeles alone, and though his stomach was full, he hadn’t had any alcohol. He needed to keep his head clear.
Until the arrests were made, it wasn’t safe for him to go home. He texted Kristina, but stayed as vague as possible. She seemed to understand, or maybe she was distracted. It was always possible she didn’t think he’d really pull through, which was a thought that made him feel oddly confident, as if it were an antidote to pessimism. Four months ago, such confidence, even in the light of reassurances otherwise, would have been hard to maintain.
He got on a bus that took him across town to an upscale SR shop. Dan had transferred a significant amount of money into Rick’s account, enough that Rick had protested when the recruiter tried to front him more. He only needed enough to get into a rig, get Ditto to forward the info to Dan at Dokutan, and find a hotel to ride it out while Dan verified the info.
The clerk at the SR shop wore a blasé smile as he checked Rick into his SR array. The lobby’s floors were of polished tile, and the cracks between the individual tiles were small enough to be nearly invisible. Only the slight changes in the light’s reflection against the stone, caused by minor variations in the angles at which each tile had been seated, gave away that the floor wasn’t one large, continuous surface. The countertop gleamed in a similar way, though there were no cracks, making it seem as though the entire top had been cast or carved of one massive stone. Frosted glass partitions between SR array cubicles gave the place the look of a bank, and the man’s shoes, when he rose to show Rick to his cubicle, clopped along the floor in a way that advertised elegance.
Rick swallowed hard and squelched the anxiety that rose within him. He’d be helpless as long as he was in the game, a fact Hector had taken advantage of the last time he played. The man had intended to kill him—he had no doubt about that. The look in his former boss’s eyes had one of cold, unrelenting determination. Rick had been naïve to think Hector would ever be okay knowing Rick held something over him.
He had to get free, had to get Kristina-Anne free, too. What was the point of a family if its entire future lay in the hands of a man like Hector?
The man gestured for Rick to step into the cubicle, then set the lock to Rick’s fingerprint. “Besides me, you’re the only one who can get in or out, barring an emergency.”
That extra level of security had been why Rick had chosen this particular SR shop. The elegant cleanliness was nice, but what this location offered above all the rest was its promise of privacy. The sound of the man’s heavy, hard-soled shoes diminished as he walked away, silenced after a moment by the closing of Rick’s cubicle door.
He sat and plugged in, taking a deep breath as he navigated to the Ruckus Online portal. He quickly fell into blackness.
He appeared on the other side, within the lucid dream of the Ruckus Online server room. He chose a private practice server and turned off the lightning ring before his vision again faded to black, and he materialized within the cave.
He trekked to the temple again, nodding to Steve the rock monster and Stan the mummy on the way there. Ditto waited for him in the garden.
He wasn’t alone, but that was as expected. Rick had found R3D_Button on a forum, and after confirming it was the same player, they’d agreed to meet in the practice instance. Rick had given him instructions to the temple garden. He didn’t know why he invited him, but Rick had pushed the urge away three times before he finally relented and acted on it. Just in case.
R3D_Button wore a wide grin, and Ditto… didn’t.
“You’ve decided to give Dokutan—”
“The data, yeah.” Rick tilted his head. “You okay with that?”
Ditto nodded slowly.
Rick looked to R3D_Button, then glanced around the garden, then back at the other player. “What do you think of the temple garden?”
“I think I need to find it in a match and get”—R3D_Button gave a significant glance toward the golden chest—“whatever’s in there.”
Rick raised his eyebrows and got into a right leg and right arm leading switch stance.
R3D_Button smiled. “Wondered where you picked that up. Packs a wallop, does it?”
A smile crept over Rick’s face. “You should see the stat boosts.”
R3D_Button nodded, and still smiling asked, “Why am I here, though?” The question hung in the air, pulled along by the gentle breeze that swayed the stalks of the grass beneath their feet.
All three turned when an unknown, yet familiar voice, said, “That’s a good question.”
It was Hector’s voice.