Odditor perked up at that.
“The party, right, yes.” He nodded. “For whom?”
“What? Who... no.” Zelda shook her head. “Not a party. The Party.”
“Oh, right. That Party. The one with, with all the tyrannizing and the arresting and…” He flicked his hand as if tossing away the thought. “And all that.” He turned toward Whenstone and lowered his voice. “Not a fun bunch, this Party.”
“I am aware, sir.”
“Clearly you know what they’ve done,” Zelda said. “Outside of this, outside of Nova. When your stream is over, when the menagerie is all fed and you log off and go back to the real world, you go back to them.” She was gaining momentum as she spoke. “Back to the world they’ve created. Or destroyed, more like. That’s why we’ve come here. To fix what they’ve broken.”
“Fixing, fixing, always fixing.” Odditor tossed his head from one side to the other each time he said the word. “Bernstein was also set on, on fixing things. That’s why he came to me.”
“So you know, then? You know about...” Zelda paused, seeming uncertain for a moment, then pushed ahead. “About the database? About all the evidence Bernstein gathered? Enough to bring down the Party?”
“Know about it? Know about it?” Odditor turned to Whenstone, chuckling as he gestured at Zelda. “She thinks I don’t know about the database.” He produced an item from his inventory. “This Bernstein fella loaned me a piece of it.”
Excuse me, what?
Kaiden had to stop himself from lurching forward and taking the item as soon as he saw it. It was a little padlock, just like the one they’d had when solving the cipher to open Bernstein’s database.
“It’s locked, of course. Tricky little thing.” He pulled at it with his fingers as if that would magically make it open. “So, it’s useless. A clever, a clever move on his part. But still, it’s one of a kind, so, you know… that gives it value.”
“He gave that to you?” Zelda asked, and Kaiden could hear the anger in her voice.
“Gave, loaned,” Odditor said, shrugging. “Used as his collateral in order to run the labyrinth. The specifics aren’t, aren’t important.”
“Bernstein risked part of his database to run the labyrinth?” Kaiden asked through comms. “Why? And how? Don’t we have all of the database?”
“It could be a copy, couldn’t it?” Titus asked. “I know it’d take forever to upload a full copy into Nova, but Bernstein could have just uploaded a bit of it.”
“No,” Zelda said. “Remember all those blank folders we keep finding in the database? All those broken links?” She frowned. “This is why they exist. Bernstein used a part of the database as his ante. But he encrypted it, too. So even though he lost it, Odditor hasn’t been able to open it.”
“We have to get it,” Kaiden said.
“Yup, yup, you see? You see? There they go again,” Odditor said, pulling Kaiden’s attention back. “No manners, no manners at all.”
“Sorry,” Kaiden said, switching back to proximity chat.
Gotta stop doing that.
“Why did Bernstein want to finish your labyrinth so badly?” Zelda asked. “First he risked his dreadnought to do it, then part of his database. Why?”
“Fixing, fixing, fixing,” Odditor said, head moving side to side again. “Bernstein wanted to talk about fixing things, about ruining the Party. For some reason he thought... I could help.”
“Can you?” Zelda asked.
Odditor smiled. A sly smile that built slowly across his features.
“Bernstein seemed to think so, wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you agree? He was convinced, he was. Enough to stake his Very... very whatever on it. And then a piece of his database after he failed the first time.”
“You can help us,” Zelda said. “You can do the right thing and fix the real world.”
“Can. Can?” Odditor seemed to ponder the word. His eyes focused on a space in the air in front of him as if the manifestation of the word was there. He swatted it away with an errant hand. “Tons of people can do things. That’s not in doubt. Heh.” He chuckled as if that were a funny thought. “No, no. The real question you should ask is ‘Will they?’” The smile fell away from his features. “And, particularly, will I?”
He wants something from us.
“What do you want?” Kaiden asked. “What will it take for you to help us?”
Odditor smiled again and his eyes flicked to the side.
Kaiden felt his brow scrunch.
“Huh?”
Odditor flicked his eyes to the side again.
“The... window?” Kaiden turned toward it.
“No, not the window!” Odditor exclaimed. “The labyrinth, of course. The labyrinth. I was, was being dramatic.” He shook his head. “Don’t you... don’t you…” He sighed. “If you want my help, want me to risk everything I’ve built with my own two… er, digital... hands in order to fix what’s broken, then what you have to do is simple. Complete my labyrinth.”
The labyrinth we’ve seen everyone fail? The player-made labyrinth you built that responds to your every command? That kills players so consistently you stream it on a weekly basis? Sure, bud. Like we’ll rise to that bait.
“I’ll do it.”
What?
Kaiden looked over to see Zelda staring down Odditor.
“I’ll do it,” she said again. “Release your menagerie, or prepare the maze – whatever you have to do – then let me in there so I can win and we can stop wasting time on whatever game this is you’re playing.”
Odditor smiled.
“Brave, brave.” He nodded, then looked to Whenstone. “She’s a brave one, isn’t, isn’t she?”
“Very brave, sir.”
“What are you doing?” Kaiden hissed, turning to Zelda and using group comms. Rude or not, it didn’t matter. She was about to get herself killed. “No one survives the labyrinth. Even Bernstein failed it – twice!”
“He makes a darn good point,” Titus said, nodding in agreement. “This is pretty much suicide.”
“I know,” Zelda said, and there was no fear in her eyes. “But Bernstein thought Odditor was a powerful enough potential ally that
