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That evening, Lucas and I went to the Tactical office to start Halloween. When we walked into the room, I saw Nicole was sitting in her powered chair at one of the spare desks. She was looking tired, and I realized it was days since I’d last seen her walking. Megan was right about the urgency of filling the vacant deputy Liaison team leader position.
“Nicole, the candidates for our unit vacancies will be coming tomorrow for me to do the initial check on their minds,” I said. “Are you happy with Megan’s preferred candidate for your deputy?”
“I’ve checked Akiko’s details, called her, and we had a useful discussion of how she can best support me in my team leader role,” said Nicole. “She seems perfect, but of course everything depends on what you see in her mind. We really mustn’t have a repeat of the problems we had with Fran.”
“I promise I won’t inflict another Fran on you,” I said.
Lucas and I went to sit on a couch facing the main screen. That was currently blank except for a time display of days, hours, minutes, and seconds that was frozen at zero.
Lucas smiled happily at me. “We want Halloween to have an irresistible appeal to Teen Game players. We aren’t just ordering them not to play it, but making it different from all the other Teen Games. We won’t be littering Teen Level with invitation cards. Players will need to go out and hunt down the invitations themselves, and those invitations aren’t cards but Halloween masks.”
Lucas’s Tactical team were all sitting at their desks. Emili came over and handed me a mask. Teens usually collected basic coloured masks from their local community centre and decorated them for the festivals of Carnival and Halloween. At first glance, I thought this was a basic red Halloween mask, but then I noticed the symbol at the centre front. A black skull with the red eyes of the hunter of souls.
“The instructions are stamped on the other side,” said Lucas. “The player has to prove themselves worthy of joining the demon pack by taking an image of themselves wearing their mask and standing by a direction sign on Level 1.”
Gideon smiled. “The hasty patrols on Level 1 are going to hate us for flooding them with trespassing teens.”
“The potential player then follows the standard procedure of sending the image and their details to the dataview identification number on their invitation,” said Lucas.
Emili went back to her desk. “We obviously don’t need to bother using chains of anonymous dataviews to protect our identities. We’re just giving out a hundred different contact numbers so we can monitor the distribution of our players across the Hive.”
Lucas picked up his dataview. “It’s eight o’clock in the evening, so all the teens will have returned home from their community centre activity sessions, eaten, and be talking with their friends. It’s time to start Halloween and give them something to talk about. Is your Liaison team ready, Nicole?”
“We’re ready.”
Lucas gave me a joyous grin. “Would you like to give us a countdown, Amber?”
I laughed. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now!”
Nicole touched a control on her desk, and I saw the time display on the main screen start counting the first seconds.
“My team is now sending out two messages,” said Nicole. “The first message is to all the Teen Level hasty patrols, telling them to start hiding their stockpile of invitation masks in places like air vents and maintenance areas. The second is a public service message to every teen, ordering them not to play a dangerous Teen Game called Halloween.”
“Dutiful teens will ignore the message entirely,” said Lucas. “The risk-addicted players will be urgently contacting their game groups though, asking if anyone knows about Halloween.”
He paused. “My team can now send Emili their predictions on how long it will take for the first player to find an invitation, follow the instructions, and join Halloween.”
The Tactical team all grabbed their dataviews and tapped busily, then Emili spoke. “We have predictions ranging from thirty-seven minutes to one hour twelve minutes, and a wildly optimistic six minutes from Lucas.”
Hallie frowned. “It’s impossible to find an invitation on Teen Level, get to a Level 1 direction sign, take an image, and send details to us in six minutes.”
“I totally agree,” said Lucas cheerfully. “I’m guessing the one hour twelve minutes estimate was from Gideon.”
“I was assuming that players would stop to think for a while before trying to join an officially forbidden Teen Game, but ...” Gideon shrugged. “You’re right. I’m a seventy-year-old defence specialist, not a seventeen-year-old future Strike team member, so I should have gone for more like fifty minutes.”
“And the prediction of thirty-seven minutes must be from Telyn,” said Lucas.
“Blue Upway has over thirty thousand players,” said Telyn. “Someone is going to be in an air vent already and respond in the minimum time.”
“Lucas, you said that we should arrange for food to eat while we’re working,” said Kareem. “I think we should start eating that food now because we don’t want the Teen Level tomato soup getting cold. That stuff is inedible enough when it’s hot.”
“Why do we have Teen Level tomato soup?” asked Lucas.
“Buzz fetched the food for us,” said Kareem. “Since you and Amber weren’t here to say what you’d like, she got a Violet Zone cheese meal for Amber, and Teen Level tomato soup for you.”
“Didn’t you tell her that I hated tomato soup?” asked Lucas. “Especially the ghastly version of tomato soup they have on Teen Level?”
“We didn’t dare to say anything,” said Gideon innocently. “Don’t you remember giving us strict orders never to argue with Buzz? You said she was like a power supply nexus, massively useful but with the potential for causing a devastating explosion if mishandled.”
“And we wanted to see the look on your face when we gave you Teen Level tomato soup,” added Emili.
I’d been doing my very best not to laugh, but now I had a helpless fit of giggles.
“This isn’t funny, Amber,” said Lucas reproachfully. “What did I do to offend Buzz so much that she’s torturing me with that revolting soup?”
Emili gave him a pitying look. “You’re dyeing her boyfriend’s hair blond and sending him undercover on Teen Level.”
Lucas groaned. “I didn’t expect Buzz to react so badly to that. She and Forge keep claiming they aren’t in a relationship.”
“People don’t always tell the truth,” said Hallie gloomily.
“People don’t always know the truth themselves,” said Gideon.
Kareem and Hallie picked up trays from a spare desk and started handing out meals. Hallie tried to give me my Violet Zone cheese meal, but I was too busy giggling to take it.
Lucas looked at his bowl of tomato soup with loathing. “You’re really going to make me eat this?”
“You don’t have to eat it,” said Emili, “but if you don’t ... Well, Buzz may think of something even worse to punish you.”
“Is there anything worse than Teen Level tomato soup?” asked Lucas.
“Buzz is very inventive,” said Emili. “She said she couldn’t stay to eat with us herself because she’s having dinner with Forge. She’s bound to ask us if you ate the soup though.”
“I suspect Buzz has plans to torture Forge as well,” said Kareem.
“I’m glad that Forge is in trouble too,” said Lucas.
“Forge being in trouble too doesn’t mean you can escape the soup,” said Emili. “Just have one spoonful so we can truthfully say you ate some of it.”
“You could lie,” said Lucas.
“Buzz is a borderline telepath,” said Gideon. “She’d probably get one of her insights and know we’re lying.”
Lucas made a whimpering noise, accepted the bowl of tomato soup, and ate one spoonful with an expression of revulsion. “I hope you’re all happy now,” he said bitterly.
I finally accepted my meal from Hallie. “You can have some of my Violet Zone cheese, Lucas,” I offered.
“No, thank you,” said Lucas. “Anything I eat now will have that dreadful metallic taste of Teen Level tomato soup.”
As I savoured my first mouthful of Violet Zone cheese, the main screen came to life, showing an image of a dark-haired boy in a Halloween mask who was standing under a Level 1 direction sign.
An instant later, a green circle was superimposed on the image, and then the screen changed to show a man wearing a black cloak and the red-eyed helm of the hunter of souls. He was standing somewhere dark, surrounded by weirdly distorted red and black trees.
There was something familiar about the figure. “Is that Lucas in his Halloween costume?” I asked.
Nobody needed to answer that question, because the hunter of souls spoke in Lucas’s voice. “You are one of the scavengers of darkness now. Soon I will summon you to prove your loyalty.”
Lucas laughed. “We’re adding to the glamour of Halloween by making our messages far more dramatic than the text messages of other Teen Games.”
“Six minutes and nine seconds,” said Emili, in a depressed voice. “I hate you, Lucas.”
“I’m just glad he’s on our side,” said Gideon. “Lucas would make a terrifying wild bee. He’d take out every critical system in the Hive within days.”
“I’m not on your side after the tomato soup,” said Lucas, “and why would I bother taking out every critical system in the Hive? Once I’d sabotaged the air purification systems in all ten zones, there’d be no need to bother destroying anything else. Virtually the whole Hive population would be dead within hours.”
Gideon shook his head sadly. “You see what I mean. Terrifying.”
Over the last few months, I’d got used to the way the Tactical team casually discussed potential catastrophes, so my mind was still focused on Teen Games.
“That screen sequence means someone has joined Halloween?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Hallie. “The green circle means their image passed my automated checks, so they’ve been sent the hunter of souls welcome sequence. It’s still impossible for anyone to have responded that fast though.”
Lucas grinned. “Perfectly true. I was counting on the fact that hundreds of hasty patrols were given stacks of invitation masks to hide. Some of them were bound to get restless and begin hiding the masks ahead of schedule.”
Emili sighed. “Which means any Blue Upway players who were roaming the maintenance areas would stumble across them, and have a head start on responding to the invitation.”
“That response was using the contact number for Navy Zone 7200 to 7299,” said Hallie. “We’re getting more responses coming in now.”
One player image after another appeared on the main screen. Lucas sat watching them critically for a minute or two before nodding.
“Your automated checks seem to be working correctly on the acceptances, Hallie. We can swap to just monitoring the rejections.”
I was swallowing a mouthful of bread when the next image appeared. I nearly choked as I saw it showed a giant thumb. A red circle was superimposed on it, and then the hunter of souls spoke in a contemptuous voice. “You aren’t worthy of the honour of joining my pack.”
“There’s always someone who doesn’t check their image before sending it,” said Hallie.
The next image showed a group of runners in a sports event.
“There’s always someone who sends the wrong image,” said Gideon.
The image changed again, and I had another choking moment. Forge was standing by a wall, holding a Halloween mask in one hand, and giving us a cheerful wave with the other.
“I expect Buzz took one of our Halloween masks to give to Forge,” said Emili.
Lucas pulled an apprehensive face. “I hope she did. If Forge skipped their dinner date to go hunting for one of our Halloween invitations, then Buzz will torture me with tomato soup for the rest of my life.”
“I can’t believe Forge would skip a dinner date with Buzz,” said Telyn gloomily. “She can just smile at a man and have him fall at her feet.”
Hallie raised her eyebrows. “Even I noticed the personal emotion in that statement. Is our attack specialist chasing a target and failing to catch him?”
Emili stared at Hallie. “You really hadn’t noticed what was going on? I know Lottery doesn’t select Tactical team mathematical or pattern specialists for their skills at reading body language, but it’s been painfully clear for days.”
“Yes, we’ve all been waiting breathlessly for Telyn to go for the strike,” said Gideon.
“I went for the strike,” said Telyn, “but I had a target breakaway. Eli didn’t even notice my blatant advances.”
I blinked. I hadn’t noticed any thoughts about Telyn when I was reading Eli’s mind. The fact he hadn’t been thinking about her, didn’t mean she hadn’t been thinking about him though.
“I’m sure he noticed your advances,” said Lucas. “The problem is that behind all the defensive comedy routines, Eli’s a shy boy. I warned you it would be a mistake to go for the strike too fast. Now you’ve panicked him.”
“At least she went for the strike,” said Gideon. “I always spent too long thinking things over, and found one of the Strike team was already dating the girl.”
Telyn was looking depressed, so I hastily changed the subject. “The hunter of souls welcome sequence mentions the player being summoned to prove their loyalty. What’s going to happen then?”
“We’ve obviously got to be careful setting challenges,” said Emili. “The whole point of running Halloween is to distract the Teen Game players from attempting the dangerous Blue Upway challenges. We don’t want to send them into danger ourselves.”
“We’re planning to hold the players’ interest by making Halloween radically different from other games,” said Lucas, “and getting them to do things that feel much more dangerous than they really are. We expect the main wave of players to have found invitations and responded by early tomorrow evening, so then we send out the hunter of souls allegiance sequence.”
Lucas turned to Nicole. “Can you run that sequence for Amber?”
Nicole tapped at her desk, and the main screen showed Lucas as the hunter of souls again. “My scavengers of darkness must swear their allegiance to me. The packs will wear clothes of the night, and gather to celebrate Halloween.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Emili grinned. “We’ve given out a hundred different contact numbers for strips of the Hive. Each player will be instructed to dress in black, take their masks, and go to a specific park in their part of the Hive at two in the morning. They’re basically going to a standard teen Halloween party, where they’ll have fun doing things like drinking tomato soup and pretending that it’s blood. The only difference will be the added thrill of it being a supposedly illegal party held in the middle of the night.”
“You’re talking about a hundred different parties across the Hive,” I said. “Surely each party will need someone to run it?”
“Yes, we’re sending a party leader to each of the hundred locations,” said Lucas. “We’re using some people who came out of the last Lottery and have been playing the part of the nosy in a telepath squad. They’ll enjoy dressing up in a Halloween costume and being popular for a change.”
He paused. “We’ll let the Halloween parties run for three hours before sending a hasty patrol to each park. That way, the parties won’t end with the park suns coming on, but with the players having the excitement of running away from the hasties.”
“It sounds like fun,” I said wistfully. “Do you think Adika would disapprove of me going to one of the Halloween parties?”
Everyone burst out laughing.
“I don’t think Adika would disapprove of it, Amber,” said Gideon gently. “I think he’d have a heart attack at the mere suggestion of you going partying with scores of the most reckless and potentially violent teens in the Hive.”
I sighed. “Being a telepath is very limiting sometimes.”
