Top Level Player, page 22
LP wiped his fingers on his pants. Aeon wrenched open another drawer. From inside, he pulled a card reader and slapped it on the desk.
“PDA activate. What are we looking at?”
A laptop zapped into existence on the desk and sprouted a USB cable to insert into the reader. Aeon swiped the card.
“Okay… Okay… This is low access. Specific access. A single door,” Aeon said. “Doesn’t match one of the primaries… Doesn’t match any of the secondaries either.”
He pulled a plastic bag from his drawer and dropped the card inside.
“The good news is, this did not provide access to any central systems. No official security breach. The bad news is, it provided access to a door that isn’t on the list of admin doors provided to the mods. The worse news is, this had to be custom made by an admin to be unassigned and transferable. Which doesn’t make any sense. If someone was going to break the rules and give Louse an admin access card, it would have been easier and safer to simply assign it to him. Why wouldn’t they assign it to him?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer. Rhetorical. That one was for me, not for you. You have already been a tremendous help. If you wouldn’t mind sticking around just a few more minutes, I think you’ll have made a big difference in this investigation. Can I offer you some refreshments? We don’t have a great selection. Coffee, assorted soft drinks.”
“Iced tea?” Jazz said automatically.
“Only diet raspberry.”
Her eyes shot open. “I’ll take three.”
A half hour later, Jazz was finishing her second long-awaited iced tea.
“They’re just how I remember,” she said.
“I’ll have to inform Miss Nu you approve. She’s one of our admin liaisons. She’s the one who keeps us stocked with those,” Aeon said.
“I’ll have to find her supplier.”
He flipped through the black book one last time.
“Okay, well, I’ve made a copy of this, and it looks like Louse had fresher data than the last Top Level Player we got a hold of. They might have one or two more Quintessentials than we thought. This is good information. Excellent. You’ve been a great help.”
“I’m glad. Tell me, I know it is a long shot, given the price they quoted, but is there any way you could see your way clear to hooking me up with premium support for this?”
“Outside my authority. But… Let me check something. PDA deploy!” Again the laptop returned. “Drop a message to Miss Nu. Ask if she has a way we can query data about someone’s arrival and activation.”
While the message worked its way through, he turned to Jazz.
“It’s a long shot, but like I said, she’s the admin liaison. She might be able to tease additional information and favors out of them.”
The keys of the laptop clacked like a player piano and the message was sent. Leet shifted in his seat and finally dislodged the katana.
“You know, I was really looking forward to going full Ninja Turtles on somebody today, but you had to go and be the one authority figure that isn’t overtly corrupt,” he said.
Leet slid the sword into his pocket, something that had not yet become commonplace enough for Jazz to not do a double take.
LP leaned back in his seat. “Hey, while we’re here, how exactly does someone get a gig as a mod?”
“We recruit from a pool of volunteers. What we’re primarily looking for are analytical minds. People with an even temperament. Ideally an underlying technical knowledge.”
LP turned to Jazz. “Sounds like someone we know.”
“It would be an exceptionally good fit for you. You clearly have a working knowledge of the underpinnings of The After-Image, at least at a theoretical level. It is taxing work, but it shields you from the more disruptive elements of the simulation and, ideally, improves the experience for everyone else. I can give you a formal application. We are openly recruiting at the moment due to a staffing problem. People tend to cycle in and out of the mods and we are in a down-cycle right now.”
He retrieved a sheet from the desk and slid it across to her.
“You’re Level 2, nearly Level 3. I wouldn’t suggest you applying until you hit Level 5. There are a few basic mechanisms that become available to you at Level 5 that’ll help you be more effective. That’ll also give us time to figure out this Spambot situation.”
“I’m surprised you can’t just… banish her or something.”
“It is painfully difficult to track her. Not unlike Louse we can’t trace her directly. And to keep her existence from giving you a bad gameplay experience, we had to apply a manual exception to the bi-location fault detection, so half of the stuff she does that would allow us to instantly pinpoint her have had their alerts suppressed. It makes my life more difficult.”
His laptop produced a chime.
“Oh! You may be in luck. They want to see you and the rest of the band at the Tech Portal. They want to sequester Gray’s Sports Almanac until after the upgrade is over and they’ll discuss compensation for cooperation. It’s not a sure thing, but they haven’t dismissed your request for information out of hand.”
“Excellent!” Jazz said.
“Oof,” Leet said. “We’ve got to make sure we keep our heads on a swivel now. When things look like they’re going our way is the perfect time for a plot twist.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Aeon said.
“That’s why you’re a desk jockey and we’re an adventure party,” Leet said.
“No, I mean you’re dealing with mods and admins. No algorithmic plot points in dealings with us. It’s hard-coded.”
“Uh-huh. We’ll just see about that,” he said, resting his hand on the pommel of his sai. “I mean, why are you having us deliver the The One? Hmm? Shouldn’t you do that?”
Aeon drummed his fingers on the table. “You may have noticed this building lacks the hammerspace aspect present in many buildings and pieces of equipment. What you see is what you get. Every mod either works in this building or works in a field office that is coordinated by this building. We have a massive amount of resources but we are very light on staff. However, to ensure an expedient and safe delivery, we will provide you with an aircraft. LP is fully qualified in its operation. PDA, inform the transportation authority we’ll be loaning a transport to LP.”
“What kind of transport is it?”
“Nothing interesting. Moderation is codified boredom. To be perfectly frank, the only interesting things in the area are going to be passing below you on the way to the Tech Portal. There is a field, approximately six hundred miles in diameter, that serves as our proving grounds for new physical designs and concepts. The Tech Portal is on the opposite side of it. At the base of the big wall. You can’t miss it.”
The laptop chimed with a fresh notification.
“Your transport is ready.” Aeon stood and extended a hand. “I want to thank you for your help. You’ve contributed to the continued stability and viability of The After-Image.”
Leet leaned forward and scrutinized him.
“You’re not fooling anyone, Mr. Perfect Teeth. Mr. Motif is on to you.” He turned to LP. “Come on. Let’s check out this ‘transport’ they’re giving us. It’s probably rigged to blow.”
LP shook Aeon’s hand.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’re not the double agent.”
“I’m not,” Didi said, hurrying after Leet.
The trio left the room, with only Jazz lingering behind to watch them go. She turned to Aeon.
“Would I get my own office?” Jazz said.
A few minutes later, Jazz stepped out with a few extra iced teas tucked in one pocket and an application tucked in the other. The transport, as suggested, wasn’t terribly interesting. It looked like the sort of thing you’d use to escape from the world’s most uninteresting spaceship. It was boxy, with wings so small they may as well have been vestigial. The thrusters that did all the lifting looked barely up to the task, and the whole thing was painted beige.
“Took you long enough,” Leet said. “I gave the thing a look. It’s clean.”
“Laurel, tell me, does Leet have any points in whatever skills it would take to figure out if a transport was booby-trapped?”
“Nope!” she said simply.
“I do enjoy when you’re concise,” Jazz said, stepping inside.
The interior looked like they’d retrofitted a dentist’s office to be an airplane cabin. Four seats with vinyl cushions and seat belts lined each wall, facing each other. A curtained door led to the cockpit. LP was already seated, with Doodad in the co-pilot’s seat. Didi had reclined in one seat and put her boots up on its counterpart across the narrow aisle. She was chewing some gum she’d picked up along with her weaponry. Leet sat beside her boots. Jazz sat next to her.
“How long will this thing take us to get to the Tech Portal, LP?” she asked.
“Unless they gave me the wrong manual, it says this thing can do Mach 1 and change. Shouldn’t take us more than forty-five minutes at that speed.”
“Impressive,” Jazz said.
“Paint some flames on the side of this thing and we’ll be there in thirty,” Leet said.
“Let’s just get moving,” Jazz said.
“Aye-aye, passenger,” LP said.
He tapped some buttons and the rear hatch shut. Thrusters kicked on and the ship lurched up like it had been straining at its chains, ready to be set loose.
“Whoa!” LP said. “I take it back, they gave me the right manual. This thing might be a dud to look at, but it can move.”
The ship roared across the sandy white expanse toward the tech portal.
“Napster? Give us something from Indiana Jones. Dotted line music.”
A spirited John Williams score filled the cabin. Didi glanced at Jazz.
“So,” she said. “You might be crossing off an objective pretty soon.”
“That I may. Though Leet’s been doing a good job of convincing me that there’ll be at least one more speed bump.”
“Let’s imagine, for the moment, that there isn’t,” Didi said. “What then?”
“Then I find out why I’m here.”
“And?”
“And that’s what this was about for me.”
“Yeah, I get that. But what do you do once you know? And I don’t need to know about lawsuits and all that. When the dust settles, you’ll still be here. What then?”
“I took an application for the mods.”
“I figured you would. The job would suit you.”
“It really would. It really, really would. Not that I’ve had much of an opportunity to shop around, but it seems like the closest thing to my old life.”
“And what happens to the party after that? We breaking up the Jazz Band?”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone better suited to this job. It isn’t as though I was much of a leader. I was just the one with the job that needed doing.”
“Maybe so. But this is still the first team I’ve ever been a part of past the first ‘distress’ that came along. Most people are out for fun. They’re not interested in having a professional liability on the team. Even if they don’t know the whole EPC thing, it doesn’t take much to notice the pattern of who keeps getting endangered and just trim the fat.”
“I’m sure Leet and LP will still want to keep the team together.”
“The team won’t be together without you. It won’t be the Jazz Band.”
“Yeah!” Leet said. “It’ll just be DJ Leet and the Blank.”
“You know what the problem is?” LP said. “You set your objective too easy. You’ve got sort of a variation of the ‘wakes up with amnesia’ origin story. It’s classic. Like Jason Bourne or a couple thousand soap opera characters. But how interesting would it be if Bourne just went to the DMV and asked them to tell him who he was?”
“It’s true. You’ve got to set your sights higher.” Leet snapped his fingers. “I got it. Revenge.”
“Revenge on who?” Jazz scoffed.
“Whoever killed you,” Leet said.
“No one killed me. I just died. I had an inoperable brain tumor. I knew the odds. It probably happened a few months after the scan.”
“Oh, come on. It wouldn’t be a good story if that’s all it was.”
“We’re talking about my actual life. Not The After-Image. The real world. You know, the place where bad things happen for no reason all the time?”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun,” Didi said.
“It wasn’t supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be real, and sometimes reality sucks.”
“So why are you so interested in finding the closest thing to it?” Didi asked.
“Because it’s what I know.”
“You didn’t grow up knowing it. I’m speculating here, because I didn’t grow up,” Didi said. “But I’ll bet things were pretty different when you were a kid. You didn’t cling to diapers and stuff. So why cling to the drudgery you ended up with? Because I’ll tell you this. What I knew was that I was destined to be kicked to the curb by people who I would want to be around and captured by the people I’d want to avoid. That was what I knew. And now I’ve got this. And call me selfish, but a few days of it has put money in my pocket and three people I can actually talk to about things like this without becoming a specimen.”
“Maybe you could get a job with the mods, too,” Jazz said. “You’ve got insight into the system that no one else has.”
“These are glitch hunters and I’m a glitch. See prior statements about becoming a specimen.” She snapped her gum. “The mods aren’t so bad, because they’ve got their hands tied. They’re technically just players. But even they are going to catch on if I hang out with them too much. And I’m not too keen on facing the admins directly, because who knows what kind of diagnostics they have.”
“We’ll watch out for you. Make sure you don’t get Area 51’ed,” Leet said.
“See? This is what I’m talking about. I could get used to it. But like I said. Selfish. We’ve got until you complete your objective. Maybe one of us will change our minds. You never know.”
Chapter 13
The trip to the Tech Portal was uneventful, beyond the questionable decision from Leet to pop the rear hatch open to get a better view of the proving grounds.
“You should have hugged the ground so we could get a better look at that stuff,” Leet said. “It’s like a sneak preview of what they’ll be rolling out to the rest of The After-Image eventually.”
“I got a pretty good look at it from up here and it just looks like a bunch of little hunks of Procedural Space with paths through them. They’re road testing… roads,” LP said.
“Bet there’s cool stuff in the middle of those hunks, though,” Leet said.
“We’re coming up on the Tech Portal. Or at least, I think we are. It’s not as flashy as the lightning rod.”
Jazz, Didi, and Leet stuck their heads through the curtain. “Not flashy” was an understatement. The only thing ahead was a hatch leading down into the ground, like some sort of a fallout shelter.
“Seriously,” Leet said. “These are the people who are in charge of crafting the fabric of our existence and their front door looks like something salvaged from a busted submarine. They’re the dream makers and they have no sense of style.”
“They probably save it for the job. Like a baker who puts Twinkies in his lunch box,” LP said.
“Can you imagine having that sort of control? Being the one who decides what a physical object will be? How the laws of physics will work while still being a part of that world?” Didi said.
“It’d take a very steady mind,” Jazz said. “Or an absolute megalomaniac. Someone who understands the solemn duty and is humbled by it, or someone crazy enough to think they deserve it. I don’t think I’m far enough on either side to consider it.”
“See? Now that’d be a worthwhile objective to add to your list. ‘Achieve programming Zen or seek world domination,’” LP said.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jazz said.
They set down in front of the hatch.
“I tell you,” LP said, slapping the console. “Add some style and I could see making this my daily driver for inter-hub gigs.”
“How much you want to bet they’re mod-exclusive?” Leet said.
They marched up to the hatch.
“So… what now?” LP said.
Jazz shrugged and gave the hatch a knock.
“Hello?” she said. “We’re here to deliver Gray’s Sports Almanac and talk about some sort of a reward.”
A distant sound rumbled from below them. Laurel shuddered for a moment, then darted in front of them.
“Hey! Listen! I have a context sensitive tutorial!” she said. “The Tech Portal is a maximum security area. The hatch allows for only one player and PDA at a time. Once cleared, you will be permitted to deliver the item and discuss your requests. The following entry manifest has been provided. First, Jazz. Second, Didi. Third, Leet. Fourth, LP.”
“I’m going to have to take a ride into admin headquarters alone,” Didi shook her head and crossed her arms. “I don’t like it.”
“If you’re worried, stay topside,” LP said. “I can hang back with you, if you want.”
The hatch shifted open to reveal a capsule-shaped chamber. They scarcely had to be told it was a single-person ride. Trying to fit more than one person inside would have been worthy of a world record attempt. It was tiny, with porthole-style windows on the door, the left and right sides, and the back. There was some question how LP was supposed to manage. Jazz hesitated. She’d spent what, to the other members of the party, must have seemed to be a terribly irritating portion of their partnership poopooing the idea that they were perpetually in the center of a broader plot. And now that the rules of the world specifically forbid such a thing from being true, she felt her first wave of suspicion.
“Laurel… we’re sure this is on the up and up?” Jazz whispered.
