“Wait! Is everyone alive?”
“Not counting my dead back, absolutely. And everyone’s waiting for you. Well, except Willy, Ed, Malik and Pollyanna, they’re already elsewhere.” After saying that nonsense, Hung stretched up, nibbed his neck. “Damn uncomfortable bed, don’t you think…?”
Everyone was fine. Willy let us know that they’d reached their destination and gotten settled in, but Ed and Malik would be without Dis until the move to Cali Bottom.
Maria Saar was making breakfast. Sergei Yuferov was still monitoring the sky and checking each flyer that came within twenty miles of the shelter. Yoshihiru Uematsu worked on upgrading the holographic camouflage—ordinary aerial observation would see nothing but forest here.
In spite of the unsolved problem of Scyth’s imprisonment, I was in a good mood. The dream had seemed so real! I felt as if I’d been through it all in real life; the capture, the conversation with the strange man, the deaths of my loved ones… Sure, I hadn’t seen anyone killed, but I’d felt the pain of loss and grief. Naturally, I shared the details of the nightmare with the security officers. They listened carefully, but it was clear by their hidden smiles that things weren’t so bad.”
“Do you know how to tell a dream from reality?” Hairo asked. “No, you can’t pinch yourself. We don’t control our bodies when we sleep. A dream that you can control is very rare.”
“How, then?” I asked.
“It’s very simple. Inconsistencies.” Hairo started counting off on his fingers. “Remember the place where we changed flyers. A covered civilian parking garage with constant traffic. Hundreds of cars arriving and taking off every minute. There’s no way they could have tracked us by satellite. The second—supposedly the reflection of your face in the water of the lake. You didn’t approach the water. At all.”
“I didn’t? I remember… Oh, right! I only washed at home. I remember how the sweat hurt my eyes when we ran from the lake.
“Right. And the last thing. You didn’t take off your holomask until you got into your capsule to give the interview. Remember, you and the boys… Yoshi gave you baseball caps that constantly change your appearance. Even if your face had reflected in the water, it wouldn’t have you been your face in the satellite imagery.”
“They wouldn’t have seen him at all,” Roj van Garderen chuckled. “The sky was cloudy then an way.”
“Bingo,” Hairo Morales finished.
After discussing my fears, we moved on to matters of Dis. Hung had news. He’d logged into the game that morning to check his mail. Yemi took my problem very seriously. As a personal matter. Apophis, the White Snake, required fewer victims than before, but still many. Fortunately, the beast god didn’t insist on individual sacrifice and was willing to change his ritual—as long as there was an altar nearby.
“Defender, increase volume!” Hairo ordered the house’s control system, looking at the holovisor.
Some press conference had come on screen. The subtitles named the speaker as Eileen Waters, leader of the Widowmakers. The woman stood at a small podium bearing the clan’s crest, a sword splitting the Earth. It was difficult to recognize Eileen in her. There was nothing elvish about her—a short chestnut bob, penciled eyes, brightly painted lips, outstanding cheekbones. We knew exactly how old she was—thirty-one—but she looked ten years younger. The only thing that showed her age was her business suit, flowing from mirror to matte black, playing with transparency and texture.
“Like a chameleon,” Maria said. “I don’t understand that idiotic fashion.”
“Quiet!” Hairo barked.
Eileen announced that I had been kidnapped and neutralized. The hall hummed. Everyone started shouting questions, demanding proof, and then a video started playing on the screen behind her back. It was me, sitting in a cell. I remembered the absolute darkness quite clearly, but the video was as if in daylight. An undead human, the highest-level player in Dis—rotting flesh, white bones, a face covered in sores and scabs, ragged hair to the shoulders, the insane grinning smile of a lipless mouth.
“Woah…” Hairo said. All the security officers looked at me. “Not the nicest looking character. Your clan’s PR guys are gonna have a tough time.”
Eileen seemed calm, but Hairo noted that she was excited, anxious; her widened pupils gave it away, along with a barely perceptible shake to her hands and a dry mouth, judging by how often she raised her glass of water to her lips. Nonetheless, the leader of the Widowmakers confidently asked questions about what the clan planned to do with my character.
“Right now, the temple of the Sleeping Gods is on the table. The lich that led the undead army is dead. The second lich, who you know as the class-A Threat, has been imprisoned. Nothing stands in the way of the Alliance of Preventers and their mission. After we’re done with that, we’ll talk about what to do with the Threat. Next question…”
After a moment’s confusion, a journalist I know spoke.
“Ian Mitchell, Disgardium Daily. Miss Waters, are you concerned that Hinterleaf, Horvac, Glyph, Colonel—that they’ll all demand that you give them Scvth?” Ian was wearing a new suit. He was fresh, clean-shaven and with a new haircut. The old news veteran looked just as good as any of his young colleagues, and only his eyes gave away his true feelings. “I doubt your young clan will dare to go up against more famous partners.”
“I suggest you save your judgments for your op-eds, Mr. Mitchell,” Eileen Waters answered. “Insinuations, assumptions, slander…
I didn’t finish watching her press conference. On the contrary, I wanted to make my escape while Eileen was occupied. And I got my chance.
While we slept, Yoruba set off a range of Plague Fury explosions in the biggest cities in the Empire, destroying their own reputation, but giving me a chance to save myself. The White Snake knew where I was, could sneak inside and pull me out. All I had to do was log into Dis. I didn’t know how the beast god determined my location while my character wasn’t in the
