| |
––––––––
The next morning, the Alpha Strike team and I went to four different locations on Level 49, so I could check the minds of the teens in the community centres beneath me on Level 50. I didn’t find a malignant Game Commander, or any hint that the teens were suspicious of our undercover men, but I did accidentally discover a fifteen-year-old who’d been starting a series of fires in his area. Tiny ones at first, but gradually increasing in size and potential danger.
Once we’d arrested the developing firebug, and handed him over for therapy, we returned to the unit. I had lunch with Lucas, and then his dataview chimed. A message had arrived from Beckett, with a massive quantity of statistics about the Halloween events. Lucas’s head filled with numbers as he studied them, so I decided this was an excellent time to visit my family in their unit apartment.
I chatted with my parents for a while, and then we played a couple of bookettes, before coaxing Gregas out of his bedroom to share one of the high level meals from the kitchen unit.
When I finally left my parents’ apartment to go to what was becoming the regular Tactical team evening meeting about Halloween events, I met Gideon in the corridor.
“When I last saw Lucas, he was absorbed in some statistics about the Halloween events,” I said. “Did they show anything important?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Gideon. “I’ve been sent the statistics, but I didn’t bother looking at them. A Tactical Commander is imprinted with every type of tactical role, and needs to have a functional level of ability at all of them, which is one reason suitable candidates are so rare and valuable. Tactical team members specialize in a specific area though. As Beckett would phrase it, I do people not numbers. My usual approach with statistics is to listen to what people like Lucas, Hallie, Beckett, and Telyn say, and nod wisely at intervals.”
I laughed, and we continued to the Tactical office. Everyone else was already sitting in their usual places, so I went to join Lucas on the couch, and looked expectantly at him.
“Early this afternoon,” said Lucas, “I called our four undercover men and told them to stop attempting Blue Upway challenges.”
I blinked.
“You did?” Emili raised her eyebrows. “Why are we abandoning the standard approach for shutting down Teen Games, Lucas?”
“Because in this case it’s too dangerous and can’t possibly work. Telepath Units are normally called in to deal with a situation where a Game Commander starts a Teen Game out of genuine interest, but is irresponsibly pushing limits on challenges to the point where they endanger their players. In that case, the Game Commander’s attention will be attracted by a player that’s startlingly daring and successful at challenges, and they may well be curious enough to arrange a meeting.”
Lucas paused. “The situation in Blue Upway is totally different. When Gold Commander Melisande gave us the job of shutting down Blue Upway, I told her that my instincts were warning me there was something horribly wrong in that game. The timeline pattern analysis has now shown us exactly what we’re facing. The new Game Commander got hold of the Blue Upway game master stack by accident, doesn’t have any real knowledge of Teen Games, and is only interested in using it to harm players.”
He shook his head. “The new Game Commander is only spending about an hour a day working on Blue Upway, so our men stand little chance of attracting attention. Even if they did manage it, this malevolent Game Commander is never going to meet a player to present an award. Our men will just get offered more lethal challenges.”
“I agree with what you’re saying,” said Kareem, “but I hope we have a new strategy. If we don’t, then Gold Commander Melisande is going to be seriously annoyed.”
“We do have a new strategy,” said Lucas eagerly. “I’ve been going through Beckett’s collated statistics on Halloween. When we started the game, we estimated that Blue Upway had about thirty thousand players. Our goal was to tempt the most risk-loving five thousand of those players into leaving Blue Upway and joining Halloween. By midnight the first evening, we had one thousand players. By the morning, it was three thousand. By yesterday evening, we’d already reached our goal of five thousand players.”
Lucas grinned. “At that point, we sent out the hunter of souls allegiance sequence, which is when the unexpected factors began hitting. We had five thousand players signed up for Halloween, but eleven thousand came to the parties.”
“How could that happen?” I asked.
“The players who’d joined Halloween got the message about the supposedly illegal party in their area,” said Lucas. “They must have told their Blue Upway game groups about it. A lot of those players decided to go to the parties as well.”
Lucas waved both hands. “All the reports say that the teens loved their illegal parties, especially the excitement of running away from a hasty patrol at the end. Those who weren’t actual Halloween players rushed to join after the parties, and yesterday evening we sent out the hunter of souls darkness challenge sequence.”
He laughed. “The idea of packs competing for a zone title has caught the imagination of the players. As I hoped, they worked out they’d have a better chance with a bigger pack, and started recruiting their friends. We’ve now reached a total of nineteen thousand players.”
“If you insist on counting the cheats.” Beckett was sitting at his desk as usual, monitoring the running of Halloween.
“I do insist on counting the cheats,” said Lucas.
“What do you mean by cheats?” I asked.
Lucas laughed again. “Some of the new players were told a Halloween contact number by a friend, and didn’t bother to go searching for one of our official Halloween masks. They just joined using an image of themselves wearing a random mask they had lying around in their room. Beckett feels that’s cheating.”
“It is cheating,” said Beckett, with a disapproving sniff.
“But our goal is to attract as many Blue Upway players as possible to Halloween, so we’re letting them join with any Halloween mask image,” said Lucas. “Some of our nineteen thousand players may have come from different games, but I estimate that at least fifteen thousand must be from Blue Upway.”
Lucas paused. “That means we’ve attracted the attention of half the players of Blue Upway, and our undercover men have reported another development. As I said earlier, the new Game Commander has little knowledge of Teen Games, and is only spending about an hour a day working on Blue Upway. The game has only kept running smoothly because most of the routine work, such as allocating points, has been delegated to several hundred of the higher-ranked players.”
Telyn gasped. “And those players got their high ranks by doing dangerous challenges. They’re the ones most attracted to Halloween. You mean we’ve stolen all the players who were doing the work of running Blue Upway?”
“Exactly,” said Lucas. “When I talked to our undercover men, they told me that points allocation has virtually halted in Blue Upway. The players won’t keep doing challenges if they aren’t getting rewarded with points and promotions.”
He continued in a triumphant voice. “That means we just need to hold the interest of the current fifteen thousand players for a few more days, then everyone else from Blue Upway will come to join them, and the Game Commander of Blue Upway will have no one left to kill.”
“If you’ve told our four undercover men to stop attempting Blue Upway challenges, does that mean they’re coming back to our unit?” I asked.
“Not yet,” said Lucas. “We don’t need our undercover men to infiltrate Blue Upway any longer, but we do need them to infiltrate Halloween. I told them to rest for the remainder of the day and come along to the next darkness event tonight.”
I was confused. “Why do we need our undercover men to infiltrate our own game?”
“So they can chat to other players and find out information about Blue Upway’s Game Commander,” said Lucas. “That person enjoys having the power to harm people. Over the last two months, they’ve been steadily escalating their behaviour to the point where they’ve killed someone. If we stop them using Blue Upway to put players in danger, they’ll just find a new way to hurt people. Our case won’t be over until we catch this person and stop them from ever harming anyone again, so ...”
Beckett interrupted him. “We’ve just received something odd from a Blue Zone contact number, Lucas. I think you should see it.”
“Put it on the main screen,” said Lucas.
I looked at the screen, expecting an image, but this was a text-only message.
“I’m the Game Commander of Blue Upway. You’ve been blatantly stealing my players, and I’m not tolerating it any longer. Close down Halloween at once.”
“Which Halloween contact number did that come from?” demanded Lucas.
“The one assigned to the strip of Blue Zone between 6500 and 6599,” said Beckett.
“There are over five million teens on Teen Level,” said Emili. “Fifty thousand of them in that strip of Blue Zone. Amber can’t check that many minds.”
“And we don’t even know that the Game Commander is in that strip of Blue Zone,” said Lucas. “They could have asked a random Blue Upway player for a Halloween contact number. We’ll call the dataview which sent that message, and see what we can find out.”
He began gabbling orders. “Kareem and Hallie, clear the far end of the office. Telyn, find my hunter of souls costume. Gideon, I need our holo background of trees.”
Telyn ran out of the room, and Kareem and Hallie started dragging the furniture away from the end wall.
Lucas stood up and turned to Emili. “Contact Nicole. I need her to set up a five-second power cut to the lights circuit on Teen Level Blue Zone 6500 to 6599, for you to execute on my command.”
“Understood,” said Emili.
There was a minute of frantic activity, then Telyn returned to dump Lucas’s hunter of souls costume onto a chair. I watched, bemused, as Lucas started yanking off his clothes.
Gideon laughed. “I worked on Claire’s Tactical team for forty-nine years. I thought I’d experienced everything, but I’ve never seen a Tactical Commander strip to their underwear before.”
“A pity it’s such sensible underwear,” said Hallie.
“Lucas was bound to wear sensible underwear,” said Kareem. “You just have to look at his socks to know that.”
“You’re supposed to be working, not discussing my underwear,” said Lucas.
“The holo background is ready.” Gideon stabbed a forefinger at the controls inlaid into his desk, and holo red and black trees appeared at the far end of the office. “Are you going to be staying in character when making this call, Lucas?”
“Yes.”
Lucas tugged on the black outfit with its red trimmings, whirled the matching dramatic cloak around his shoulders, and then put on the red-eyed helm that hid most of his face. He strode down to the end of the office, and stood in front of the red and black trees.
“How do I look?”
Gideon went to adjust the folds of Lucas’s cloak, and then stared intently into his eyes. “Power stance, Lucas. You are the hunter of souls, an immortal creature of legend. You are amused by a mere mortal daring to challenge you, but may grow bored at any moment and crush him into dust beneath your feet.”
“Got it.” Lucas took on a menacing air.
“Perfect.” Gideon hurried back to his desk. “The image is looking flawless, Lucas. I’ll be making your call in three, two, one. Action!”
There was a pause before the call was answered, then the main screen flickered and changed from black to grey, but no image appeared. The person at the other end wasn’t going to let us see their face.
“You dared to challenge the hunter of souls,” said Lucas, in a threatening tone.
“The hunter of souls is a myth,” spat an impatient male voice. “You’re just a Game Commander like me, and I’m ordering you to close down your game.”
“Oh, I am myth,” said Lucas, “and I am legend, but I am also your reality. The dark angel triumphed in combat at Halloween, and has granted me the right to enter the Hive and summon those who wish to join my demon pack.”
“Childish stories,” said the male voice. “Close down your game now.”
“Yes, the Hive warns its children against me,” said Lucas. “The Hive knows best in this matter, but there are always those like you. The ones that refuse to listen and discover the truth too late.”
“Do you really believe you’re the hunter of souls?” asked our target incredulously.
“I don’t believe I’m the hunter of souls,” said Lucas. “I am the hunter of souls. I issued my summons, and you answered it. You are bound to me now, and I have the right to use or destroy you at my pleasure.”
“Well, you may believe you’re the hunter of souls,” said our target, “but I don’t. Stop stealing my players. Close down your game.”
“You don’t believe I’m the hunter of souls,” said Lucas. “Do you want me to prove it by plunging you into darkness?”
“Yes, go ahead and do that,” said our target sarcastically.
Lucas lifted his hand, and Emili tapped a control on her desk.
“I hate to tell you this, but the lights here are still ...” The taunting voice broke off, and then there was a gasp of alarm.
There’d been two power cuts when I was living on Teen Level. The first had only lasted two minutes, and the second had been the great power cut that lasted days. Now the lights had gone out again on Teen Level. I knew the teens in Blue Zone 6500 to 6599 would be panicking about this being another great power cut.
There was a wait of several seconds, followed by a second gasp, and then our target spoke in a shaky voice. “What are you? How did you do that?”
Lucas laughed. “I told you I was the hunter of souls. Do you want me to plunge you into darkness again? Should I freeze the belt system and the lifts as well this time, or would you like me to shut down your water and your air?”
“No!” said our target sharply. “You aren’t the hunter of souls. You can’t be, because he’s just a myth. You have to be someone who works in Power Services.”
Our target’s voice rose in triumph. “I’m right, aren’t I? The Blue Upway Champion wasn’t working alone after all. Forge had collected a group of you to help him.”
I gasped in shock at the mention of Forge, and hastily put my hand over my mouth to make sure I didn’t make any more noise.
“You all played Blue Upway until you went through Lottery last Carnival,” continued our target. “You’re loyal to its old Game Commander, and you want to help her escape me. You thought that if you stole all Blue Upway’s players, I wouldn’t be able to use the game to punish her any longer, and she’d be free.”
The target laughed. “Well, your plan isn’t going to work. I spotted Forge had returned to Teen Level, and took him prisoner. If you don’t shut down Halloween, then I’ll kill him.”
The screen flickered again and went black.
