Virtual Prophet (10 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Devil had a recurring dream...

I’m walking. Most often through cities, but sometimes it can be a country town or even a lone, empty road.

I look towards the top of a tall building... there’s always a tall building within sight, and there’s always someone standing on top of it, looking sad and depressed, as if they want to jump.

I try to stop them but I’m too far away. I yell as loudly as I can to get their attention; they never hear me.

Then I remember I have powers that can save them.

Before I can reach out to hold them up, they step off the ledge and fall to earth. I watch in horror as they hit the ground, and when I look back up again, there are dozens more, standing on multiple buildings.

They all begin to jump, as I watch in horror.

In this dream, there’s only one girl, dressed in a frilly purple dress that flares at the bottom. She’s pretty and her skin is covered in black snakelike tattoos. She goes through the same sort of pre-jump ritual as the others do in this type of dream. I watch as she falls towards the ground, waiting for her to thud wetly to the pavement like they always do.

Instead of smashing into the pavement, she stops suddenly just as she reaches the ground, landing softly on her feet and bending her knees slightly to absorb the tiny impact. I’m so surprised that I can’t move; I can’t speak.

She looks at me, and her gaze is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. She stares at me calmly while my panic and fear slowly rises like steam in a boiling kettle. She stares pointedly, even hatefully at me for what feels like an eternity.

Eventually my mouth opens and I begin to scream. The sound is blood curdling and disturbing. I wonder at first where it’s coming from, until I realize it’s me. Which makes me scream even louder.

And then I wake up.

===

“You shouldn’t be sleeping by yourself out in the open,” Carl’s voice rumbled from beyond the light of the fire.

Stephanie quickly scanned the energy field that surrounded her at all times, testing to make certain no one had tried to breach it.

“I’ve learned how to protect myself, Carl,” she sat up in her sleeping bag. Sap in one of the logs touched the flames, causing it to snap and crackle loudly.

Carl emerged from the blackness of night and sat down beside her, leaning against a log and reaching for a plate of half-finished food.

“You’ve learned a lot these past few years, girl,” he said.

“How am I doing so far?” she asked sincerely.

Carl stopped eating and looked at her with an amused expression.

“If I still had your colour eyes, I would kneel before you and call you mistress,” he said, “and I would likely only think about killing you fifty percent of the time, which is a compliment from me, darlin’.”

Stephanie nodded curtly, although she wanted to smile at the kind words.

“It’s a horrible life,” she said.

“Of course it is,” Carl snorted. “That’s how you know you’re doing it correctly. I don’t hear the regret in your voice that was there when you first changed four years ago.”

“I’ve become... accustomed to the lifestyle,” she said.

“I bet you have. It’s stupid not to have protection close by, though. You’re too still young to travel alone.”

“I’m not alone,” she smiled sweetly.

Carl paused and looked around, tilting his head like an animal to listen to the sounds around him.

“The girls?” he nodded. “They are very good. I hope you’re using them to their full potential.”

“Absolutely. Once it became known they were loyal to me, the rest of the organization quickly came to heel. I only had to kill three Infernals to deliver a proper lesson.”

“Kill two more, and do it soon,” Carl shook his head. “I can’t believe the girls haven’t guided you better in some areas of the Lore. Five is your lucky number, and it will send a proper message to Infernals everywhere.”

Stephanie smiled cruelly. “The girls are doing fine, Carl. We will hit five on the anniversary of my fifth year in power. No one knows who it will be, which has the entire group on pins and needles. I learned well from Raph over the years. I am strong in my position, yet not so arrogant as to believe there aren’t multiple threats to me at all times.”

Carl nodded and finished his meal, then grabbed the canteen and drank deeply from it.

“How is everyone?” Stephanie asked.

Carl shrugged as he leaned back to stare into the fire. “Everyone’s fine, Steph. The Colony has doubled in size and continues to be a royal pain in the ass. The rest send their love.”

“Tell them I send it back.”

The two sat quietly and watched the fire.

“I’m not sure what to do about your Colony,” Steph said finally.

“Don’t do anything,” Carl advised. “You have the whole world full of scattered and fearful people, Stephanie. Look in another direction and do your thing.”

“How many of the Thirteen do you have?”

“Six,” Carl looked at her. “How many do you have?”

“Five.”

“When can we collect them from you?”

Stephanie frowned at him and shook her head slightly. “I’m not sure you can,” she said.

Carl continued to gaze into the fire. “That wasn’t the deal, Steph.”

“There are some who don’t want to turn them over to you.”

“So?” he asked.

“So, I’m not strong enough to go against their objections yet.”

“The
n
ge
t
strong enough,” Carl snapped. “We need them together, and we need it sooner rather than later.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Stephanie warned.

“My tone doesn’t matter, darlin’,” Carl whispered. “My actions do. If you need me to go hunting for Infernals to help you get support, then just say the word at this lonely campfire in the middle of nowhere and I’ll get to it.”

“You would do that?” she asked.

“We need the Thirteen in our camp,” Carl said. “That’s been my order since you became the Devil. The way I figure it, that allows me to do your dirty work in good conscience.”

Stephanie held her hands to the fire for warmth. “I have four names,” she said.

“Speak them,” Carl told her.

Stephanie gave him the names, as well as their locations in the world.

“They die and we get the five numbered people,” Carl said.

Stephanie considered the deal for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Carl stood up and began to walk towards the shadows. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“You look pretty comfortable sitting in that chair,” Trew called out as he entered the penthouse apartment. Across the room Trew and Cooper could see the boy sitting in the plush leather chair. He looked up from the computer monitor and smiled, spinning the chair around and flashing them a genuine smile of delight.

“It seems a lot bigger than I remember,” he hopped down and walked towards the living area, plopping comfortably onto a black leather couch. His smiling eyes flitted to Cooper and he nodded. “Enjoying a full time gig in the Game, Cooper?” he asked.

“I’ve only been here a few days, boy,” Cooper sat down with an amused look. “Trew’s kept me busy so far.”

“Excellent,” the boy said. “Let’s chat for a bit, shall we, gentlemen?”

Trew sat down and looked closely at the boy. He looked to be around thirteen or fourteen years old, with short brown hair and bright blue eyes. He wore comfortable fitting clothes that matched the current teen style on Tygon, along with black running shoes. He looked like any normal boy his age on Tygon, except for his eyes.

Children who played the Game began to display a ‘look’ shortly after they began to play incarnations as humans. The more lives they lived, the more of a presence they displayed. Between the ages of sixteen to eighteen it was impossible not to recognize a Gamer entirely by their bearing and presence. Younger children didn’t show it so acutely; to see the presence so strong in a boy this age was, to say the least, remarkable.

“Brandon?” Trew asked, just to make it official.

“What?” the boy asked seriously, then winked and beamed a huge smile.

“Just confirming what we all knew,” Trew said. “Didn’t take you long to get back in here.”

“You shouldn’t be back in here,” Cooper frowned.

“Says who?” Brandon asked.

“It’s too soon, Brandon,” Cooper began. “There are rules and procedures for re-entry...”

The boy held his hand up and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “The rules have been changed,” he announced. “I was needed here now, so I came.”

“You know what could happen because of your choice,” Cooper said.

“Better than anyone,” Brandon nodded. “Yet here I am.”

“What is it you need to do here?” Trew asked.

“We’ll get to that in a few moments,” Brandon said. “First, you two need to fill me in on what’s happening here. How is Tygon?”

“You know about the Game, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Brandon said. “I invented it.”

Trew looked at the boy, trying to understand why he was joking around. Brandon shook his head and raised a hand in apology. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said. “I’m new to this body. It’s immature and I’ll need a bit more time for my personality to fully take control. Ignore most of my adolescent outbursts.”

Trew paused as he recalled what he’d witnessed on the video Thorn had shown him. Rather than being born, Brandon had transferred his consciousness into an existing NPC avatar. He wasn’t sure what happened to the NPCs consciousness, but he had a feeling that was a question for a different conversation.

“The Game feeds are down,” Trew said.

“Ahh, yes. The Game feeds are down,” Brandon said. “How’s that working for everyone so far? It’s shaking things up properly, I bet?”

Cooper chuckled and Trew made a wry face. “Yes,” Trew confirmed, “it’s shaking things up very nicely. I’m guessing that it’s intentional?”

“It is,” Brandon said. “My old body drops, the feeds go down.”

“For a preset amount of time?” Trew asked.

“Kind of.”

“What do you mean, kind of?”

“How many Gamers are on Tygon now? Not players of the Game, but members of the Gamer movement from Earth.”

“Over a hundred million,” Trew said.

“Closer to four hundred million,” Cooper said.

“Really?” Trew looked surprised. “Only one hundred million were culled.”

“I’ve been making inquiries,” Cooper smiled. “Turns out that most of the players who exit their plays are joining the movement.”

“Good,” Brandon said. “I hope you’ve been encouraging them to help bring the feeds back up?”

“I was right, then,” Trew nodded. “If enough of us focus our intentions on that outcome, it will happen.”

“That’s always been the truth of the matter,” Brandon said. “I tried to do it by making the Game a spectator sport, but it wasn’t enough to unite the masses. It took you and Danni to join enough minds to the same focus point.”

“Did you set the feeds to come back up at a set time?” Cooper asked.

“No, I couldn’t make it work like that,” Brandon said. “We need to know for certain that it’s the thoughts of millions producing the result.”

“So the feeds come back up sometime, but we aren’t sure when. What purpose does that serve?”

“It’s a demonstration, an exercise to show the masses what they can accomplish when they put their collective minds to it. When the feeds come back up, everyone will know that thoughts are real in this world and they have the power to alter reality,” Brandon said.

“What do we do after that happens?” Trew asked.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Brandon smiled, and shook his head. “This part of the game is yours to play, Trew. I’m not here to take your spot; I’ve already been the leader of this world. The job belongs to you now, and you will be better at it than I was.”

“Why are you here, then?” Trew asked. “Just to answer a few questions and live life anonymously?”

Brandon laughed out loud. “I might be young, but I’ve lived long enough to have had my fill of vacations and roaming around with no purpose. That’s fun for a while, but it becomes boring.”

“How old are you?”

Brandon arched an eyebrow at Trew and gave him a serious look. “Thorn showed you my story; you do the math. I’m older than thirteen, but I don’t intend to grow up into an old man inside this skull.” He tapped his head with one hand and knocked the table with the other to make a hard rapping noise.

“So what’s your plan, then?” Cooper asked.

The boy smiled. “I’m gonna spend a few days with you and answer whatever questions I can. I have to be very careful; I don’t want to give Trew, here, any info that might change how he proceeds. When the Game feeds come back up, I’m going in.”

“Into the Game?” Trew asked.

“Yes, into the Game,” Brandon laughed. “There are things that need doing in there that only I can do.”

“You need to talk with your Hand,” Cooper guessed.

Brandon gave him a sideways look and a quick nod. “Yeah, that’s one thing I need to do.”

“You made me to be like you, didn’t you?” Trew asked.

Brandon nodded. “For decades I’ve been running the simulation and putting NPCs through a grinder to churn out one who would be as much like me as possible. I thought it would be difficult, and then I began to think it was impossible.” He looked at Trew with the fondness of a parent. “My whole plan rested on producing you, Trew. I’m glad we still have a shot at fixing all of this.”

“Of waking your people up? The ones dying in the Dream?”

“Yes.”

Trew nodded thoughtfully. “So we have you with us until the feeds come back online.”

“That’s right,” Brandon said.

“It could be any time?” Cooper asked.

“It could.”

“If you had to guess, how long would you say you’ll be with us before you go back into the Game?” Trew asked.

“You’re a clever lad. I like that,” Brandon smiled. “I guess there’s no harm in answering that question, since it’s just a guess.”

Brandon walked got up and walked to the bar, grabbed a fruit juice and returned to the couch.

“If I had to make a guess, I would say in three days I could be heading into the Game.”