Top Level Player, page 16
“So the question is, does this change things?” Jazz asked.
“Not right away,” Leet said. “We’ve still got the Roland to deliver, and to do that we’ve got to finish the extraction. But after that, I think it means we’ve got to start climbing our way up the ladder. We take down Louse. We find out who he’s working for. We take them down. We’re the ragtag band of misfits, and that means we are obligated to take down the big bad.”
“Leet’s right, but that’s not why I think we should do it,” LP said. “I think we should do it because Louse is a big pain in the butt and I’d rather fend off the occasional mishap or interloper than him every time.”
“I can say that, of the many people who have pursued me, Louse is both the most motivated and most vicious.”
Jazz shut her eyes. “I just wanted answers.”
“Oh, you’ll get them,” LP said.
“Yeah! You’re the reason this whole thing started, so your problem will turn out to be the root of all our problems,” Leet said.
She covered her face. “Look, I’m willing to accept that things work differently here than outside the simulation, but this is something that started outside the simulation. It’s probably just some kind of bureaucratic snafu. Just because it would make for a good narrative to tie it all up with a bow doesn’t mean it’ll happen. The simulation can’t change something that already happened on the outside.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” LP said.
“We can’t agree to disagree about facts!” Jazz said.
There was a knock at the door.
“Hey, uh, don’t mean to interrupt your little confab, but I need to check the machine,” called Smitty.
“Come in,” Jazz said, grateful for the interruption.
Smitty opened the door and sidled himself into the room, which with the rest of the crew was becoming rather cramped.
“So, you guys are a new team, huh?” he said. “Must be, what with the donor here being so short on playtime.”
“Yeah, but we’re up and coming!” Leet said. “You watch the WireFeed for mentions of the Jazz Band. None of us are streamers, so it’ll be mysterious, but you get to get on board before we’re cool.”
“Hey, that’s great. Well, I’ll tell you, you’ve got a good leader here,” Smitty said. “Good clean data structure. Easy to pull an intrinsic.”
“She’s not really the leader,” Leet said.
“Yeah, we said Didi was the Hannibal, so that kind of makes her the leader,” LP said.
“No, no, I mean, we don’t really have a leader. No one’s calling the shots,” Leet said.
“Well, the lady here with her name on the party has a good clean data structure, like I said. Should’ve took two hours and we’re just… about…”
The machine produced a chime and he reached down beneath the control panel.
“Done,” he said, pulling up what looked like either a medallion or a belt buckle. “Here we go. The Glow, all iconized and ready to sell. I’ll hang onto it.” He glanced to his polygonal PDA. “Let Weebly know the deed is done.”
The floating mechanism pulsed green. A few seconds later, Laurel sang out her four notes of fanfare.
“Objective complete! Payment received!” She summoned an envelope. “Forty thousand tokens, a writ of transfer for the Roland TR-808, and the travel stipend. You’ve leveled up! You’ve now reached Level 2 and have two additional stat points available.”
“Just two? Last time it was five.”
“Major levels produce more points,” Laurel explained.
“Pow!” Leet said. “Another one in the books! I leveled up, too. Level 21 for me. Gotta plan out those points!”
“I’m still Level 17,” LP said. “Getting close, though.”
“Tell you what, Jazz,” Smitty said, looking over the readings from the machine. “If you’re ever looking for a steady gig, you’ve got a real future as a donor. Some folks give a good, quick pull better than others, and you’re one of the best I’ve seen.”
Leet snickered. Didi slapped him in the back of the head.
“So just anyone can have The Glow now?”
“No, not just anyone. It’s like Mjolnir, you know? Still takes the right kind of person, but doesn’t take the right kind of situation anymore. Not that it matters, it’s destined to be part of a collection. Once I ship it out.” He slipped it into his pocket. “Oh, and that Louse guy? He’s outside.”
“What?” Jazz said.
“Yeah. He can’t get past the gate, so he’s just sitting there getting incrementally more angry,” Smitty said.
“Why isn’t he shooting at us?” LP asked.
“He is. He just can’t get through the fence.”
“He can’t shoot through a chain link fence?” Jazz said.
“I told you. I beefed this place up. But you’ve got to move along.” He removed the cuff from Jazz. “A mobbed-up heavy with a big gun is going to be bad for business.”
She and the others hurried from the room and made their way to the open garage door. Sure enough, Louse was there, pistol in his hand and smoldering look of fury on his face. A sophisticated Town Car was idling behind him, door open and keys in the ignition.
“Seriously, I am not cut out for this constant hunt. We’ve got to figure out how to get Louse off us. Or at least find someplace to take a break for a few days. I’m going to get an ulcer if this keeps up,” LP said.
“Naw, man. This is great. Racking up the XP,” Leet said.
“It looks like he’s alone,” Didi said. “That’s a plus.”
“We don’t know that,” LP said.
“There aren’t enough hiding places for more than a few people,” Jazz said.
“There’s the car,” Leet said. “He could have brought like a dozen clowns.”
LP shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Is there a back way out of here?” Jazz asked.
“Nope! More doors means more gates, and I did a lousy enough job on the first set,” Smitty said.
“This isn’t going to go well,” LP said. “We’re still not well armed. Doodad! Make a note. Buy heavy weapons.”
“We need a plan,” Didi said.
“Unless the plan can shoot rockets, we’re going to need more than that,” Leet said.
“I don’t think rockets will do it,” Jazz said. “Every time we hit him with anything that doesn’t completely punt him out of the area, he brushes it off with that ‘Once’ line.”
“Borg rules, probably,” LP said. “Any given attack only works once.”
“What we need is to hit him with something he’s never been hit with before,” Didi said.
“Hey! We’ve got a workshop available to us, and we’re using the A-Team model. Right about now is when they’d do another montage and then just build a tank or something. That’s your job, Jazz. You’re BA.”
“I don’t have the parts for a tank, and they’d cost you a pretty penny if I did. A guy’s gotta make a living.”
Jazz looked around the garage.
“Okay, how much for… the hair spray, the lighter, some of those PVC tubes and fittings, and a hardboiled egg?” Jazz said.
“I don’t know. Three tokens? Two if you let me watch you build whatever you’re planning, because that’s a wacky combo,” Smitty said.
“Deal.” She fished out the payment. “Now, guys, I don’t want you to get used to this, because I don’t know how to build much. Back in college we used to build these for prank purposes. While I’m working on it, let’s go through our inventories and see what else we can scrape together for the rest of a plan.”
Seven minutes later, Didi walked unsteadily toward the gates.
“Screw you guys!” she shouted over her shoulder as the rest of the crew climbed into the Warthog.
“What have we here?” Louse shouted, grinning as the first of two gates rattled open. “Did your friends get sick of savin’ your bacon?”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, adjusting the scarf about her neck. “Let’s just get this over with. The banter from the kidnapper is always the worst part.”
The second gate rolled open, though the air between her and Louse still flickered with whatever “bulking up” Smitty had done to keep the bullets from making it through.
“You know it ain’t just you, sweet cheeks. They got me after that Roland whatsit, too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Didi said, reaching into her little clutch.
She pulled out the TR-808 and held it up.
“I like a crew that knows what it can and can’t handle. Sensible,” he said, slipping his gun into his jacket.
The flickering field vanished. Didi stepped through and it reactivated. When she was near enough, he grabbed her by the wrist.
“You stay right here, toots. I got business that needs settling.”
“You got what you wanted!” LP said, hands tight around the steering wheel of the Warthog.
“No. I got what the boss wanted,” Louse said. “But those three in there? They did some stuff they oughtn’t’ve done. And Tony Louse’s here to teach ‘em a lesson.”
Didi looked tensely from Louse to the others. She took a breath. It was going to take all of her effort to keep from gagging during this next part. She took a step closer to him and stroked his chest with her free arm.
“Tony… maybe we can make an… arrangement. Can’t we? Just this once?”
He turned to her, his cocky grin widening.
“I can think of a couple arrangements I’d like to get into with you.”
“Hey, Louse!” Jazz shouted.
He turned in time to see her pop up from behind the driver’s seat of the Warthog with a PVC pipe on her shoulder. The protective energy field had dropped away. Leet stood behind her and touched a lighter to a hole in the back of the pipe. There was a loud puff and something splattered across Louse’s face. He stumbled back, taking his hand from Didi to wipe his eyes. Didi took the opportunity and dashed for the car.
“You shot me with an egg!” Louse shouted, rubbing shell fragments and yolk from his face. “That’s a new one.”
The Warthog revved and screeched through the open gates as Didi hopped into the driver’s seat of Louse’s car and slammed on the gas.
“You should’ve made those arrangements when you had the chance, toots!” Louse shouted, finally recovering from the blow to the face sufficiently to reach for his gun. “Because this thing shoots… Shoots…”
He felt around inside his jacket. Didi smiled and reached into her bag.
“One guaranteed successful pickpocket!” she shouted, pulling Louse’s stolen Eighty-Eight Magnum from the bag.
As much as she would have loved to shoot him, she very much doubted she would be the first to plug him with a revolver, and thus it wouldn’t do any good. The important thing was he was unarmed and without a vehicle in a place that was at least a day from the nearest hub.
When she was sure Louse didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve, she turned to the road ahead and followed the Warthog up onto the highway.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” she said.
Chapter 9
“We’re here,” LP said.
Jazz snorted awake. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. She didn’t remember dozing off, but evidently that “exhausted” status effect packed quite a punch.
“Wow,” she said groggily. “If you’d asked me a week ago if I would be able to fall asleep in the back seat of an open-air military vehicle, I’d have given you a strange look and not dignified you with an answer.”
She blinked her bleary eyes a few times. The last thing she remembered was a seemingly endless stretch of procedural highway. Now it was evening and they were parked beside a raging river flowing through what looked to be a desert landscape.
“Where is here?” she asked.
“About halfway to the drop box. Still in Procedural Space.” He yawned. “More importantly, we’re at the point where someone’s going to take over behind the wheel. You and Leet caught a couple hours of Zs. And while I’m sure Doodad here would be just thrilled to take the wheel, he’s really more of a last resort driver. Someone’s going to have to take over for me and for Didi so the whole crew will be rested. Which do you want to drive? Louse’s car or the Warthog?”
“Dibs on the Warthog!” Leet said.
“You can have it,” she said.
She hopped out and stretched.
“Can someone please tell me why getting cramped up from being on the road too long was one of the things they chose to include in the simulation?” Jazz asked.
“Look at the bright side,” he said. “At least they turn off fuel requirements in Procedural Space. Here in the simulation, every car has infinite highway mileage.”
“At least there’s that. Did you come up with a next step while I was out?”
“You two were snoring and I was trying to keep my eyes on the road, so there wasn’t a whole lot of plotting going on,” LP said.
Jazz nodded.
“Probably for the best,” Didi called. “Seems like you and me are the masterminds of the group.”
She was busy rummaging through the nearly empty trunk of Louse’s car.
“Hey! I can plan with the best of them,” Leet said, taking the wheel. “You just wait. One of these days, you two will be like, ‘I’m all out of plans’ and then out comes DJ Leet Motif with the brilliance. But split up like this is no time to be planning. Let’s just get where we’re going, get the rest of our paycheck, and then we can come up with something good. Napster! Driving music!”
The boombox deployed and, after some station scrubbing, settled on “Radar Love” by Gold Earring.
“See you at the finish line!” he shouted before peeling off.
Jazz paced over to the town car and slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Oh…” she purred, shutting the door. “A girl could get used to this.”
Didi opened the passenger side door and climbed in.
“I know. Not exactly all the modern conveniences, but you’ve got to love the luxury yacht feel of these big old cars.”
She started the engine and pulled out behind the Warthog. Didi slid the passenger seat up a bit and rattled the knob for the glove compartment.
“Locked,” she said.
Jazz glanced in her direction.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“Guess it’s another side effect of being an EPC. Sleep’s a lot more optional for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll hit the sack eventually, but right now I’m more interested in what else Louse’s hiding in here.”
She rummaged through her purse and came up with a nail file which she industriously put to work jimmying the lock.
“Listen, Jazz?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I want to thank you for being cool about, you know… me. And I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront about it.”
“Eh. It’s not like I would have understood or believed you if you had been up front. Seems to me you’ve had to look out for number one a lot more than I have, and have had a lot more to look out for than I have.”
“Still.”
“Apology accepted.” Jazz shifted and poured on a little more acceleration. “I like this car. I haven’t driven a manual since I was first learning in my Dad’s old car. Brings me back. It’s a shame we’re probably going to have to ditch it.”
“Yeah… I can’t imagine driving around in Louse’s car is a good idea,” Didi said. “But we’re not ditching it. We’re selling it. Gotta get you closer to that six mil.”
“Heh. I guess I didn’t get quite enough sleep. That didn’t even occur to me. Though in the real world it’s not super easy to flip a car without people asking questions.”
“Yeah, you can buy or sell just about anything to just about anyone at the drop of a hat.” She grunted and wiggled the nail file. “Not me, but you.”
“Another side effect of being an EPC?”
“No official player ID, no official transaction account. All my deals have to be in cash, which is a smidgen more complicated.”
“Fun… There’s got to be a way around that.”
“If there is, I haven’t found it.” She tried a bit more finesse with the lock. “So I’ve been wondering. What are you going to do once you’re done with this little quest?”
“Define ‘This Little Quest,’” Jazz said.
“You’re trying to raise money to get premium support. Assuming you get it, what then?”
“Then I find out who did this and why,” she said.
“And what then?”
“And then I confront them about it.”
“To what end? To seek restitution? It’s not like they can take you out of it. If you’re here, it’s because you died out there. What are you going to have them do? Just… deactivate you?”
“I don’t… I don’t know. I’m not exactly eager for oblivion. Money maybe?”
“So you’re going to save up six million plot tokens in exchange for some unknown amount of plot tokens. Seems like you could skip a step there and just enjoy the money you make.”
“No. It’s the principle of the thing. This can’t stand. You don’t understand... I… First of all, I know I’m not supposed to talk about what came before, but I’m going to.”
“Do what you need to do. It’s not like you’re going to bum me out about what I’ve lost. I never even had a before.”
“I had brain cancer. Inoperable. Fatal. And I made a decision. I decided I was going to take control. I was going to do what I could, take every last option. I would use what time I had left to make an impact and see if I could steal even a few more years. I’d prepared myself for the fight, and I was ready to relish the remaining days, no matter how bad they got. And then this happens.”
“Sounds like they rescued you from a withering death.”
“This choice was not on the table. This was not what I chose. Maybe I would have, if it had been available, but it wasn’t. Near as I can tell, I died years before it might have been a choice. And I at least want to know why. And I’ll find out.”
Didi’s efforts finally paid off. The glove compartment popped open.
“Not right away,” Leet said. “We’ve still got the Roland to deliver, and to do that we’ve got to finish the extraction. But after that, I think it means we’ve got to start climbing our way up the ladder. We take down Louse. We find out who he’s working for. We take them down. We’re the ragtag band of misfits, and that means we are obligated to take down the big bad.”
“Leet’s right, but that’s not why I think we should do it,” LP said. “I think we should do it because Louse is a big pain in the butt and I’d rather fend off the occasional mishap or interloper than him every time.”
“I can say that, of the many people who have pursued me, Louse is both the most motivated and most vicious.”
Jazz shut her eyes. “I just wanted answers.”
“Oh, you’ll get them,” LP said.
“Yeah! You’re the reason this whole thing started, so your problem will turn out to be the root of all our problems,” Leet said.
She covered her face. “Look, I’m willing to accept that things work differently here than outside the simulation, but this is something that started outside the simulation. It’s probably just some kind of bureaucratic snafu. Just because it would make for a good narrative to tie it all up with a bow doesn’t mean it’ll happen. The simulation can’t change something that already happened on the outside.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” LP said.
“We can’t agree to disagree about facts!” Jazz said.
There was a knock at the door.
“Hey, uh, don’t mean to interrupt your little confab, but I need to check the machine,” called Smitty.
“Come in,” Jazz said, grateful for the interruption.
Smitty opened the door and sidled himself into the room, which with the rest of the crew was becoming rather cramped.
“So, you guys are a new team, huh?” he said. “Must be, what with the donor here being so short on playtime.”
“Yeah, but we’re up and coming!” Leet said. “You watch the WireFeed for mentions of the Jazz Band. None of us are streamers, so it’ll be mysterious, but you get to get on board before we’re cool.”
“Hey, that’s great. Well, I’ll tell you, you’ve got a good leader here,” Smitty said. “Good clean data structure. Easy to pull an intrinsic.”
“She’s not really the leader,” Leet said.
“Yeah, we said Didi was the Hannibal, so that kind of makes her the leader,” LP said.
“No, no, I mean, we don’t really have a leader. No one’s calling the shots,” Leet said.
“Well, the lady here with her name on the party has a good clean data structure, like I said. Should’ve took two hours and we’re just… about…”
The machine produced a chime and he reached down beneath the control panel.
“Done,” he said, pulling up what looked like either a medallion or a belt buckle. “Here we go. The Glow, all iconized and ready to sell. I’ll hang onto it.” He glanced to his polygonal PDA. “Let Weebly know the deed is done.”
The floating mechanism pulsed green. A few seconds later, Laurel sang out her four notes of fanfare.
“Objective complete! Payment received!” She summoned an envelope. “Forty thousand tokens, a writ of transfer for the Roland TR-808, and the travel stipend. You’ve leveled up! You’ve now reached Level 2 and have two additional stat points available.”
“Just two? Last time it was five.”
“Major levels produce more points,” Laurel explained.
“Pow!” Leet said. “Another one in the books! I leveled up, too. Level 21 for me. Gotta plan out those points!”
“I’m still Level 17,” LP said. “Getting close, though.”
“Tell you what, Jazz,” Smitty said, looking over the readings from the machine. “If you’re ever looking for a steady gig, you’ve got a real future as a donor. Some folks give a good, quick pull better than others, and you’re one of the best I’ve seen.”
Leet snickered. Didi slapped him in the back of the head.
“So just anyone can have The Glow now?”
“No, not just anyone. It’s like Mjolnir, you know? Still takes the right kind of person, but doesn’t take the right kind of situation anymore. Not that it matters, it’s destined to be part of a collection. Once I ship it out.” He slipped it into his pocket. “Oh, and that Louse guy? He’s outside.”
“What?” Jazz said.
“Yeah. He can’t get past the gate, so he’s just sitting there getting incrementally more angry,” Smitty said.
“Why isn’t he shooting at us?” LP asked.
“He is. He just can’t get through the fence.”
“He can’t shoot through a chain link fence?” Jazz said.
“I told you. I beefed this place up. But you’ve got to move along.” He removed the cuff from Jazz. “A mobbed-up heavy with a big gun is going to be bad for business.”
She and the others hurried from the room and made their way to the open garage door. Sure enough, Louse was there, pistol in his hand and smoldering look of fury on his face. A sophisticated Town Car was idling behind him, door open and keys in the ignition.
“Seriously, I am not cut out for this constant hunt. We’ve got to figure out how to get Louse off us. Or at least find someplace to take a break for a few days. I’m going to get an ulcer if this keeps up,” LP said.
“Naw, man. This is great. Racking up the XP,” Leet said.
“It looks like he’s alone,” Didi said. “That’s a plus.”
“We don’t know that,” LP said.
“There aren’t enough hiding places for more than a few people,” Jazz said.
“There’s the car,” Leet said. “He could have brought like a dozen clowns.”
LP shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Is there a back way out of here?” Jazz asked.
“Nope! More doors means more gates, and I did a lousy enough job on the first set,” Smitty said.
“This isn’t going to go well,” LP said. “We’re still not well armed. Doodad! Make a note. Buy heavy weapons.”
“We need a plan,” Didi said.
“Unless the plan can shoot rockets, we’re going to need more than that,” Leet said.
“I don’t think rockets will do it,” Jazz said. “Every time we hit him with anything that doesn’t completely punt him out of the area, he brushes it off with that ‘Once’ line.”
“Borg rules, probably,” LP said. “Any given attack only works once.”
“What we need is to hit him with something he’s never been hit with before,” Didi said.
“Hey! We’ve got a workshop available to us, and we’re using the A-Team model. Right about now is when they’d do another montage and then just build a tank or something. That’s your job, Jazz. You’re BA.”
“I don’t have the parts for a tank, and they’d cost you a pretty penny if I did. A guy’s gotta make a living.”
Jazz looked around the garage.
“Okay, how much for… the hair spray, the lighter, some of those PVC tubes and fittings, and a hardboiled egg?” Jazz said.
“I don’t know. Three tokens? Two if you let me watch you build whatever you’re planning, because that’s a wacky combo,” Smitty said.
“Deal.” She fished out the payment. “Now, guys, I don’t want you to get used to this, because I don’t know how to build much. Back in college we used to build these for prank purposes. While I’m working on it, let’s go through our inventories and see what else we can scrape together for the rest of a plan.”
Seven minutes later, Didi walked unsteadily toward the gates.
“Screw you guys!” she shouted over her shoulder as the rest of the crew climbed into the Warthog.
“What have we here?” Louse shouted, grinning as the first of two gates rattled open. “Did your friends get sick of savin’ your bacon?”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, adjusting the scarf about her neck. “Let’s just get this over with. The banter from the kidnapper is always the worst part.”
The second gate rolled open, though the air between her and Louse still flickered with whatever “bulking up” Smitty had done to keep the bullets from making it through.
“You know it ain’t just you, sweet cheeks. They got me after that Roland whatsit, too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Didi said, reaching into her little clutch.
She pulled out the TR-808 and held it up.
“I like a crew that knows what it can and can’t handle. Sensible,” he said, slipping his gun into his jacket.
The flickering field vanished. Didi stepped through and it reactivated. When she was near enough, he grabbed her by the wrist.
“You stay right here, toots. I got business that needs settling.”
“You got what you wanted!” LP said, hands tight around the steering wheel of the Warthog.
“No. I got what the boss wanted,” Louse said. “But those three in there? They did some stuff they oughtn’t’ve done. And Tony Louse’s here to teach ‘em a lesson.”
Didi looked tensely from Louse to the others. She took a breath. It was going to take all of her effort to keep from gagging during this next part. She took a step closer to him and stroked his chest with her free arm.
“Tony… maybe we can make an… arrangement. Can’t we? Just this once?”
He turned to her, his cocky grin widening.
“I can think of a couple arrangements I’d like to get into with you.”
“Hey, Louse!” Jazz shouted.
He turned in time to see her pop up from behind the driver’s seat of the Warthog with a PVC pipe on her shoulder. The protective energy field had dropped away. Leet stood behind her and touched a lighter to a hole in the back of the pipe. There was a loud puff and something splattered across Louse’s face. He stumbled back, taking his hand from Didi to wipe his eyes. Didi took the opportunity and dashed for the car.
“You shot me with an egg!” Louse shouted, rubbing shell fragments and yolk from his face. “That’s a new one.”
The Warthog revved and screeched through the open gates as Didi hopped into the driver’s seat of Louse’s car and slammed on the gas.
“You should’ve made those arrangements when you had the chance, toots!” Louse shouted, finally recovering from the blow to the face sufficiently to reach for his gun. “Because this thing shoots… Shoots…”
He felt around inside his jacket. Didi smiled and reached into her bag.
“One guaranteed successful pickpocket!” she shouted, pulling Louse’s stolen Eighty-Eight Magnum from the bag.
As much as she would have loved to shoot him, she very much doubted she would be the first to plug him with a revolver, and thus it wouldn’t do any good. The important thing was he was unarmed and without a vehicle in a place that was at least a day from the nearest hub.
When she was sure Louse didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve, she turned to the road ahead and followed the Warthog up onto the highway.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” she said.
Chapter 9
“We’re here,” LP said.
Jazz snorted awake. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. She didn’t remember dozing off, but evidently that “exhausted” status effect packed quite a punch.
“Wow,” she said groggily. “If you’d asked me a week ago if I would be able to fall asleep in the back seat of an open-air military vehicle, I’d have given you a strange look and not dignified you with an answer.”
She blinked her bleary eyes a few times. The last thing she remembered was a seemingly endless stretch of procedural highway. Now it was evening and they were parked beside a raging river flowing through what looked to be a desert landscape.
“Where is here?” she asked.
“About halfway to the drop box. Still in Procedural Space.” He yawned. “More importantly, we’re at the point where someone’s going to take over behind the wheel. You and Leet caught a couple hours of Zs. And while I’m sure Doodad here would be just thrilled to take the wheel, he’s really more of a last resort driver. Someone’s going to have to take over for me and for Didi so the whole crew will be rested. Which do you want to drive? Louse’s car or the Warthog?”
“Dibs on the Warthog!” Leet said.
“You can have it,” she said.
She hopped out and stretched.
“Can someone please tell me why getting cramped up from being on the road too long was one of the things they chose to include in the simulation?” Jazz asked.
“Look at the bright side,” he said. “At least they turn off fuel requirements in Procedural Space. Here in the simulation, every car has infinite highway mileage.”
“At least there’s that. Did you come up with a next step while I was out?”
“You two were snoring and I was trying to keep my eyes on the road, so there wasn’t a whole lot of plotting going on,” LP said.
Jazz nodded.
“Probably for the best,” Didi called. “Seems like you and me are the masterminds of the group.”
She was busy rummaging through the nearly empty trunk of Louse’s car.
“Hey! I can plan with the best of them,” Leet said, taking the wheel. “You just wait. One of these days, you two will be like, ‘I’m all out of plans’ and then out comes DJ Leet Motif with the brilliance. But split up like this is no time to be planning. Let’s just get where we’re going, get the rest of our paycheck, and then we can come up with something good. Napster! Driving music!”
The boombox deployed and, after some station scrubbing, settled on “Radar Love” by Gold Earring.
“See you at the finish line!” he shouted before peeling off.
Jazz paced over to the town car and slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Oh…” she purred, shutting the door. “A girl could get used to this.”
Didi opened the passenger side door and climbed in.
“I know. Not exactly all the modern conveniences, but you’ve got to love the luxury yacht feel of these big old cars.”
She started the engine and pulled out behind the Warthog. Didi slid the passenger seat up a bit and rattled the knob for the glove compartment.
“Locked,” she said.
Jazz glanced in her direction.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“Guess it’s another side effect of being an EPC. Sleep’s a lot more optional for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll hit the sack eventually, but right now I’m more interested in what else Louse’s hiding in here.”
She rummaged through her purse and came up with a nail file which she industriously put to work jimmying the lock.
“Listen, Jazz?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I want to thank you for being cool about, you know… me. And I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront about it.”
“Eh. It’s not like I would have understood or believed you if you had been up front. Seems to me you’ve had to look out for number one a lot more than I have, and have had a lot more to look out for than I have.”
“Still.”
“Apology accepted.” Jazz shifted and poured on a little more acceleration. “I like this car. I haven’t driven a manual since I was first learning in my Dad’s old car. Brings me back. It’s a shame we’re probably going to have to ditch it.”
“Yeah… I can’t imagine driving around in Louse’s car is a good idea,” Didi said. “But we’re not ditching it. We’re selling it. Gotta get you closer to that six mil.”
“Heh. I guess I didn’t get quite enough sleep. That didn’t even occur to me. Though in the real world it’s not super easy to flip a car without people asking questions.”
“Yeah, you can buy or sell just about anything to just about anyone at the drop of a hat.” She grunted and wiggled the nail file. “Not me, but you.”
“Another side effect of being an EPC?”
“No official player ID, no official transaction account. All my deals have to be in cash, which is a smidgen more complicated.”
“Fun… There’s got to be a way around that.”
“If there is, I haven’t found it.” She tried a bit more finesse with the lock. “So I’ve been wondering. What are you going to do once you’re done with this little quest?”
“Define ‘This Little Quest,’” Jazz said.
“You’re trying to raise money to get premium support. Assuming you get it, what then?”
“Then I find out who did this and why,” she said.
“And what then?”
“And then I confront them about it.”
“To what end? To seek restitution? It’s not like they can take you out of it. If you’re here, it’s because you died out there. What are you going to have them do? Just… deactivate you?”
“I don’t… I don’t know. I’m not exactly eager for oblivion. Money maybe?”
“So you’re going to save up six million plot tokens in exchange for some unknown amount of plot tokens. Seems like you could skip a step there and just enjoy the money you make.”
“No. It’s the principle of the thing. This can’t stand. You don’t understand... I… First of all, I know I’m not supposed to talk about what came before, but I’m going to.”
“Do what you need to do. It’s not like you’re going to bum me out about what I’ve lost. I never even had a before.”
“I had brain cancer. Inoperable. Fatal. And I made a decision. I decided I was going to take control. I was going to do what I could, take every last option. I would use what time I had left to make an impact and see if I could steal even a few more years. I’d prepared myself for the fight, and I was ready to relish the remaining days, no matter how bad they got. And then this happens.”
“Sounds like they rescued you from a withering death.”
“This choice was not on the table. This was not what I chose. Maybe I would have, if it had been available, but it wasn’t. Near as I can tell, I died years before it might have been a choice. And I at least want to know why. And I’ll find out.”
Didi’s efforts finally paid off. The glove compartment popped open.
