“Hold up. You said ‘owned,’” Kaiden said, hung up on the word. “This guy owns a moon?”
Zelda smirked.
“I did say he could be a potentially powerful ally.”
Odditor... Kaiden bit at his lip and tried to recall what else he’d heard about the player. Dude’s important, but kind of a hermit. Keeps a bunch of pet monsters, I think? And he runs some relevant factions?
“Bernstein said he ran several factions, right? I can’t remember how many.”
Zelda shook her head.
“Bernstein didn’t know for sure. And I didn’t even know this guy was anything more than a weird streamer cashing in on people’s bizarre tastes.”
Oh, right. The maze! That thing sounded awesome.
“So, you think if we can get this guy on board with us, the combined strength of the factions he allegedly runs would be enough to convince Maximus to talk to us?” Kaiden asked.
“It’s not a bad thought,” Titus said with a shrug. “Though something tells me the only thing Maximus will respect is force.”
“Odditor is a piece of Nova lore,” Zelda said, stressing the last word. “The guy’s been around since the beginning. If we can make an ally of him, there’s a big chance we gain more than just the support of the factions he leads.”
“She has a point there,” Thorne said. “We’re not particularly hurting for credits right now, but we will need a lot more than my stash to outfit an army. This guy’s insanely rich, he’s likely powerful too, and Bernstein thought there was a chance he could be trusted. Maybe even a chance he’d be sympathetic to our cause.”
“And there’s a chance if he does join us that Maximus will reconsider…” Kaiden pondered that a moment. “Apparently it takes allies to gain allies. Sort of like a line of dominos and we just need to knock down the first one.”
Zelda raised her shoulders in a shrug.
“That’s the theory, at least. And at present, I don’t have a better one.”
“What about ‘The Syndicate?’” Titus said out of the blue. “Bernstein also mentioned them.”
Yeah, he did. Something about them had resonated with Kaiden when he’d first heard of them. Something about their mystery, maybe.
“‘The Syndicate’ doesn’t exist,” Thorne said, fixing Titus with a firm gaze. “Odditor is a piece of Nova folklore, but ‘The Syndicate’ is just a collection of rumors and made-up stories.”
“Probably,” Kaiden added. “Probably just rumors.”
Thorne scoffed at that.
“But I think Zelda’s right,” Kaiden continued. “We know Odditor actually exists. Whether he’s as strong as Bernstein seemed to think, well, we’ll see. But at the very least, we know where to find him. Everything else we can figure out once we meet him.”
“Assuming we don’t get the same treatment we did here,” Titus said with a growl and cast a glance back toward Kyraxis.
He’s not letting that go anytime soon, is he?
“So, it’s settled, then?” Zelda looked up at them all. “We make for NC451 and Odditor. Find out if Bernstein’s suspicions were correct and see if we can’t win a major ally in the process?”
Thorne grunted her approval. Titus nodded.
Kaiden hesitated a moment, then nodded as well.
“Done.” Zelda swiped at the terminal’s screen and the route she’d plotted flew off to one side. “Acton,” she said through comms. “I just sent up a course to a small moon.”
“We received it, Captain.”
“Great. It’s a bit of a backwater, but that might just work in our favor. I know we have the new transponder, but let’s do our best to avoid major space lanes on the way there, yeah? The Warden Corps knows we’re using a transponder, so there’s a good chance they’ll just be scanning every light cruiser they come across.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
The engines of the Veritas II fired to life, and outside the window, Kyraxis began to move slowly away.
“Well, there it is.” Kaiden looked at everyone in the room with him. “Maximus didn’t work out as planned, but it’s gonna take more than that to stop us.” He turned toward the bridge. Somewhere, far in front of them, NC451 waited.
“We should learn what we can about this Odditor guy. When does he stream? We could tune into one of those. Might help us learn what we'll be dealing with once we arrive.”
Zelda shuddered at the mention of the stream.
“We could also not do that,” she said. “There’s a fair bit of information online. I’d rather read that.
“I don’t know,” Titus said, a smile pulling at his lips. “The obstacle course monster stream sounded kind of interesting.”
Finally! Kaiden tried not to smile too much. Someone agrees with me.
“You have fun with that,” Zelda said. “I’ll stick to Bernstein’s database and Novapedia.”
“Thorne?” Kaiden asked, turning to her. “What d’ya say? You in?”
She looked to Zelda, hesitated, then back to Kaiden. Finally, she shrugged, then smiled.
“I mean, it counts as research, right?”
Chapter Nineteen
Almost there. Come on, you got this! Kaiden watched from a too-close perspective as the camera followed the frantic player. Her breath was ragged, her stamina near expended from the ordeal, but she was close.
Kaiden could feel his own adrenaline pumping even though he wasn’t actually the one running the labyrinth. The whole thing was being streamed from flying camera drones following HeleneSixer, the low-level player who’d somehow found her way into Odditor’s Menagerie of Madness.
She’d stolen the flag – Kaiden could see it, strapped to her back and flapping in the wind – but now she needed to place it on the podium that was somewhere nearby. Normally that wouldn’t have been so difficult. But then there was the ever-shifting labyrinth to consider. Oh, and the horde of grachnids she’d stolen the flag from.
Walls that looked to be some gruesome combination of machinery and organic material, complete with vein-like vines, rose around her. They whirred and whispered as they moved, sometimes rising higher, other times lowering to the ground enough to reveal a new path.
