for it. He looked over to Lyra and Djoser, who were passionately strategizing a plan for finding and executing Lily. They too had spent days with the fair Star Sister and had gotten to know her well, but they weren’t skulking about feeling sorry for themselves or for Lily. It was just part of the Game, plain and simple, and they acted accordingly. There must be a flaw in my DNA…or my conditioning, he thought.
Logically speaking, D_Light had every reason to be enthusiastic about the final quest of this MetaGame. Over the last few days he had tried to stay off the Cloud since he was still a fugitive and the Divine Authority may have tracking software that uses Cloud signatures to locate persons of interest; nevertheless, he had poked around enough to know that this MetaGame was hot. Thanks to the drama and chaos he had caused in NeverWorld by insulting Queen Pheobah, and thanks also to the very public violence in the lounge when that seeker tried to “apprehend” them, their game had picked up a lot of attention. Now players all over the world were placing their bets on this MetaGame. If D_Light’s team won, he would get a piece of that action in addition to his regular take. It would be an unfathomable fortune-a fortune that would accelerate him on the path of immortality. And all they had to do was hunt down and kill a product. Legally, nothing more than destroying an expensive piece of furniture.
Despite this realization and some mood-enhancing chemis, D_Light could barely muster the resolve to follow his teammates into the garden by the time Lily’s head start expired.
Lily ran swiftly but took care to not let the outstretched branches and leaves touch her. Like others of her kind-and even humans-she shed millions of cells a day, and although her skinsuit would hold onto most of this exfoliation, the suit shed a scent of its own-everything did. I will pass through like a breeze, she thought.
Perhaps I never escaped the reserve. Perhaps the Great Stag is real after all and has made the whole world a hell for my kind.
She suppressed these panic-inducing thoughts and shut down all the functions of her MIC, save her internal clock. There was only one thing to focus on now, and that was to stay alive for seventy-two hours. If she did that, she would live, at least for now. Lily had survived the running game back home. This would be no different. She tightened her grip on the small blue bottle and quickened her pace.
Djoser cursed to himself as he gazed into the rent-a-boy holding pen. It was sealed and empty. He and Amanda had left the others to go muster a search party for Lily. He figured he could trade sex with Amanda to the rent-a-boys in exchange for their cooperation, but the rent-a-boys were gone. So too were the concubines and the analysts. Even more conspicuous, there were no gardeners anywhere to be found. This was particularly troubling to Djoser, who had hoped to find an unlucky drone and jack the repellant worn around its neck. But there would be no search party and no repellant.
He decided it was likely that Dr. Monsa and his minions were all nearby, either in a hideout in the inner sanctum itself or somewhere else within his massive house. I guess I’ll just have to import some labor, he thought.
Djoser proceeded to attempt to create a search game invitation on the Cloud, complete with a generous bounty attached. However, much to his surprise and dismay, an error message popped up saying that his connection was blocked by network quarantine. Djoser cursed again. If a network quarantine was in place, then certainly the inner sanctum was physically locked down as well. Fortunately, his teammates were inside the quarantine, so he could at least still reach them. He opened a blink to give his status.
PeePee found her trail, Lyra sent to the others. As Lyra pursued her familiar through the garden, followed by a sullen D_Light, she kept her crossbow trained out in front of her and ruminated on the shocking news Djoser had sent them.
Surely this interruption in labor comes at great cost, Lyra thought. It seemed like a sinful waste of resources to quarantine the inner sanctum in response to their trivial game. Unless there was some other reason…an experiment?
Lyra knew MetaGame etiquette as well as any noble. As their host, the doctor was divinely bound to not directly interfere with their MetaGame; rather, at most, he could merely accommodate a fair contest. He has set the stage, Lyra mused. While not explicitly hindering the party from finding the camper, he had evened the odds of the quest in a subtle, yet effective way.
With contact to the outside world, players like Lyra had access to a great deal of resources. For the right price-and certainly the price would be justified in this game-they could rent help, perhaps a powerful analyst or AI to aid in strategy. Or better yet, a hunter specialized for this activity. After all, the rules did not expressly forbid such tactics. But now, cut off from the outside world…it’s just her and us.
Lyra realized she probably could not even put a penalty on the doctor for what pretty much served as imprisonment. Before they entered the inner sanctum, Love_Monkey had insisted they all digitally sign a number of legal documents, and-as expected for a bioengineering facility-quarantine was a legally covered scenario. Clearly, Dr. Monsa was no fool. And perhaps Lily wasn’t quite as naive as Lyra had thought. Possibly it was no coincidence that Dr. Monsa came to favor the product during their stay. Perhaps Lily had made extra “efforts” to make the doctor favor her, and now this was how his bias was playing out. Lyra chastised herself for not ingratiating herself more to Monsa over the last few days. Had he not been so off-putting and ugly…
Lily stared up at the blue sky above as she floated downstream on her back. This was the closest thing to rest she expected for the next sixty-nine hours, but she could not rest her mind. She needed to anticipate their next move and act accordingly.
The team would not be able to catch her by tracking alone. She was moving too swiftly, and her trail was light. Even her present waterborne journey would frustrate their tracking effort for hours. But she knew they were clever. They would do more than just sniff her out. They will use their eyes too. She remembered when the cullers had been hunting them; Djoser had used his robot to scout out the garden visually from the top of a tree. Their familiars can see very far and can see a great deal at once. I must stay hidden.
To do this, she would need to leave the garden and travel through the wild forest that surrounded it; however, she realized the thicker cover would come at the price of speed, and she would not be able to disguise her trail at all. The other option would be to stick to the water and allow this stream to carry her as far as it would. No, it was a predictable move, and predictability was the one thing sure to kill her. Besides, BoBo had said some time back that all rivers flushed out through impassible grates into the great lake above. There would be no escape that way.
By sunset of the first day the hunters had lost and found Lily’s trail several times, but they had not actually seen their prey. Nevertheless, without a break, the hunt continued into the night.
Each of the hunters had their assignments. Lyra, along with her familiar, continued to track. Amanda, Djoser, and Moocher were sent ahead of Lily’s estimated heading to attempt to catch up. D_Light and Smorgeous were left behind to guard the paradise garden. It was here where the small lake and main waterways of the inner sanctum were largely concentrated. Wide, shallow creeks, fountain pools, and narrow but deep rivers were fed by the lake-a lake that was fed from beneath itself by a deep geyser.
Staying behind was D_Light’s idea. He suggested that Lily, upon realizing she could not leave the inner sanctum, would eventually double back here to again destroy her trail in the water. This strategy of ambush was plausible to the others, but to him it was only an excuse to be away from the rest of the team. Seeing them in their purpose sickened him.
Unfortunately, despite his physical distance from the rest of the team, the nobles were constantly drawing him into their blinks with their incessant planning and status updates. This left little opportunity for sleep, so D_Light patrolled along the edge of the rivers. Besides, D_Light knew the nobles would be furious if they caught him snoozing during their final quest.
Meanwhile, Smorgeous played lookout on the highest branch of the tallest nectar tree in the area. Without his familiar nearby, D_Light could not see much in the soft light of the faux moon, but he did not resort to artificial light because it would give away his position. The inner sanctum was a dark zone, void of nanosites coating the surfaces, so there were no skins to jack into. And with the network quarantine in effect, the Cloud was gone. With nothing to see, he closed his eyes and just listened. In between blinks from the others, there was only deafening
