Katria suddenly dropped the conversation, having received a report from the sniffer assigned to dogging the demon’s faint scent trail. Had the trail been stronger or the path straighter, the sniffer might have been able to use its nearly supersonic speed to catch her in a matter of seconds, but as it was, it was barely able to follow the trail at all. The bot finally had something to say besides “status unchanged.” The scent was stronger, consistent with the demon having lingered in an area for longer than usual.
Katria patched herself though the video feed of the sniffer. There were four spankers standing rigid, submitting their full cooperation to the bot. All four of them were logged out of the game, which made them viable suspects; the sniffer had already checked them. Katria felt a thrill up her spine. The DNA trace was relatively new, probably only a few minutes old. Surely the demon has not escaped the mounds yet, she thought. Quickly, Katria grabbed the ID of one of the spankers from the sniffer’s log and opened a blink to him.
WootWood sat on the soft dro-vine seat in the chamber where he had just died. His longtime teammate, CootThis, paced back and forth, nearly frothing in his agitation. GoodLookin, also known as “new guy,” leaned against a dro-vine wall, frowning.
“That mother-fraggin’ pisser,” shouted CootThis, throwing his arms up in anguish. “He detonated an AOE spell right in the middle of us! Just waited for us, waited for us to do the heavy lifting on the nasties, and then he smoked us all!” He was breathing heavily, his rants pounding out like a jackhammer.
“Yeah, and CT, did you see how that blond bitch just stood around looking like a nOOb? Oh, until it was time for her to yank our stuff. Then she got to it!” WootWood was more sulking than angry now.
“How long ’til we re-spawn?” WootWood asked the question to avoid silence in their commiseration rather than out of need for an actual answer. His onboard clock was only a thought away.
“Twelve minutes and twenty-three seconds; then we’re gonna track them down and put the hurt on!” CootThis pointed down one of the tunnels. “You heard them-they’re going for the spunnel.”
“When we catch up, Spookle will turn on ’em, and then we’ll have ’em outnumbered!” WootWood punched into the soft living sponge of his seat. “He better turn! I can’t believe he went with those pissers. We oughta kick his ass real-time for pulling that!” WootWood stood up, his fists and jaw clenched.
“And what’s with that pisser playing cross-gender like a deviant? I wouldn’t ’ave half minded getting fragged by a hot witch bitch, but then I come up and see that guy? Damn!”
“Yeah, I was like, ‘Hey, I’d pump that,’ and then pow! The chick’s got a scrote! That’s some serious misrepresentation bullshit!” WootWood exclaimed.
“It’s the deviants you need to watch out for,” chimed in GoodLookin. “Don’t know what they’ll do. Bottom line is he took us down easy. If we’re gonna bring the hurt, we can’t go in rough-rider. We need a strategy, eh?”
“Let’s start with defense then,” CootThis said. “What are we gonna do about that witch, wizard, or whatever it is-and that ice spell? I don’t have my potion of cold resistance; they pinched it.”
“I say we-” WootWood’s voice suddenly broke off, and his eyes widened. “Oh flip! Oh flip! I’ve got a ping from the Divine Authority!”
“The wha’?” CootThis looked distracted.
“The flippin’ Divine Authority! They’re pinging me.” WootWood was pale in the light of CootThis’s UV torch.
“Wha’?”
“Are you stupid? What did I say?” WootWood was breathing fast now. The heat drained from his face, and he felt like he had just swallowed a glass of acid.
“NOOb, don’t leave them waiting!” CootThis wrung his hands.
WootWood closed his eyes to concentrate on the blink. After a pause he said, “Shit, they want to know about the girl. Gotta be that doe-eyed blond bitch.”
“What about her?” GoodLookin asked.
“Look at me! Do I look like I know? Shit, maybe this is about-” WootWood paused as his eyes darted about as though his optic nerves had been cut.
“What? What did you do?” CootThis asked, fear in his voice.
“I dunno, I might’ve touched her ass. You know, just brushed it.” WootWood’s jaw was slack.
“NOOb, shut up! You cupped her ass? Don’t even think that shit! They can scan your brain. I think they can scan your brain. You gotta calm the flip down and get back to ’em before they think something’s up.” CootThis shoved WootWood’s shoulder.
WootWood took a deep breath and was quiet while CootThis sped up his pace, keeping his eyes on his friend who looked like he was going to fall off his seat.
“I don’t blame him,” GoodLookin chuckled. “That ass was shapely.” This remark earned him a hard look from CootThis.
WootWood’s eyes opened, and he looked up at the others. “Shit, I gave ’em the archive of everything with the girl.”
“All of it? Even the ass cup?” GoodLookin was smiling.
“Yeah, what was I gonna do? I don’t want an angel coming down here and reformatting my ass.”
The interview had been profitable. Katria had always found it amusing to remotely interview subjects. When playing law enforcement grinder games, she came through blinks as an “official agent” of the Divine Authority. She commanded the bot to continue to track the demon, but she had it deploy a set of cameras before continuing on its way. The cameras were too small to be seen with the naked eye. Unfortunately, the nanocomponents that made up the cameras were complex and inherently unstable, and would therefore break down within minutes. However, this gave Katria enough time to watch the subjects as they squirmed. Of course, she did not need to watch them to detect deception. No, the unfiltered memories from the subject’s mind could not lie, and it was more than an interrogator from earlier times could have extracted after days of intensive grilling. It was seeing the panic on their faces that made watching them in real time worthwhile. She knew it was silly, the sort of human vice-among other reasons-that made angels the first-string enforcers while humans were relegated to mere backup or support. Still, she had to have fun once in a while.
Besides confirming where the demon was headed, the interview had revealed another interesting data point. The demon had actually been playing a spanker game, which is why she was not caught in the initial sweep. And just as surprising, she was playing on the guest account of another player, common alias D_Light, a member of House Tesla, which was based over twelve hundred kilometers from there.
According to WootWood’s recent memories, there was now another player in their party, common alias Spookle, who was leading D_Light and the demon. Dialogue spoken near the interviewees before the demon and her friends left suggested that the runners were trying to leave via a nearby exit tunnel-a tunnel currently covered by one of Katria’s sniffer bots.
Nice work, Katria, said Rhemus, who had been monitoring her work in his periphery. Now, let’s query the spanker game for their location and end this.
Am I a nOOb? I already did that, snapped an irritated Katria. They’re no longer logged into NeverWorld- they’re not logged into any spank game.
According to the log from NeverWorld, her target had been kicked out of the game due to game death. They were now “ghosted” from that game’s perspective, and the game was not programmed to keep track of the identity of ghosts. For some reason, there was also a ton of other ghosts in the area, making it impossible to tell who was who.
My Soul, there’s a slaughter underway! Spankers gettin’ ghosted en mass! What the Soul is going on? Rhemus asked, vexation filtering in with the blink.
Shit, whatever, responded Katria. They got ghosted less than a minute ago, so they can’t be far from where they got licked. I’m sending all available bots to their last known location. They’re done like dinner.
CHAPTER 16
