Beyond the Boss Read online

  Horc stepped closer. “Lenny,” his opted to use Lefthandofgod’s real name. “Stan’s okay. He and the rest of the guild are trying to find their way into the cavern from the mountains. We came through the tunnel.”

  Lefthandofgod grinned. “Good. Come on, I’ll show you where the dragon is. He’s a foul beast, but maybe if we all work together we can bring him down and free us.”

  “What do you mean?” the Elven woman demanded. “He took us in when we died and the program was acting up. He’s kept us safe here.”

  Horc pushed past Miranda and held up his hand. If there was something he was used to doing, it was having a team meeting when the manager was out. He’d seen the size of Miranda’s team when he was out of the pod; there was no way she was prepared for an interrogation of this size.

  “What has the dragon been telling you?” Horc started, hoping to draw people’s attention with a direct question and stop a bunch of the muttering he could hear in the background.

  “That it rescued us,” the Elven woman said. “That the game was malfunctioning, and we could’ve died when we were killed.”

  A chill ran down Horc’s back. It was the same thing he’d told himself many times before he’d been able to get out of the game for a little while.

  “No,” Lefthandofgod countered. “It’s been stealing us. It kidnapped some of us from the Lone Palm Arena while you were trying to rescue us.”

  Horc remembered the sand of the arena erupting and Pyranous flying away with a cage of the people who’d been in the slave pens below. He’d seen Slasher in that cage, along with a bunch of others. “Lenny, have you seen Slasher? He was in the cage with you when you were brought here.”

  Lefthandofgod nodded. “He’s worked his corporate willies on the dragon and their besties now. I don’t trust him.”

  “And you’re a fool,” the Elven woman snapped. “Slasher’s a good man.”

  “If you won’t take us to the dragon, could we go to Slasher?” Horc hoped that changing tactics might get them farther. At least they knew Slasher, or his toon. From what Horc could tell, Theo Davenport was a good man IRL. “He used to be part of our party, before we became a guild. He knows us.”

  The Elven woman smiled. “You’re Horc, we can all see that. You’re the one who’s trapped by the tornado. We’ve heard stories of your bravery. Sure. We can take you to Slasher. I think he’ll be happy to see you. It’s always good to be reunited with friends.” She glanced around, then pointed at the fighter who’d first greeted them. “Clydemore, run tell Slasher who we’ve found and let him know we’re heading his way.”

  “Okay.” Clydemore flashed her a salute, and then pushed his way through the crowd.

  When Horc looked again, there had to be at least a hundred people standing around. He wasn’t aware that the AI had kidnapped that many people. What worried him was the level of Stockholm syndrome he was seeing in them. They should all be ready to rise up and fight against the dragon, not defend it. That didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

  “So, who are you?” Horc asked as their Elven guide started through the crowd that parted for them. Lefthandofgod walked at her side, a sour look distorting his ruggedly handsome face.

  “I’m Elunda,” the Elf replied. “Although in real life, I’m Hellen Smalls, from the Houston office.”

  “Ms. Hellen?” Tufkakes asked. “I didn’t know you played games. It’s me, Shelia.”

  Elunda stopped and grinned. “Shelia? I thought you were kidding about rolling up a guy so the men would leave you alone.”

  Tufkakes laughed. “Nope. Never was. Why didn’t you say anything about playing? We could’ve rolled up together and ran together.”

  “Didn’t cross my mind until I got off work.” Elunda shrugged. “I think right now we all need the money.” The party cleared the edge of the people gathered around them. Everyone fell into line behind them, streaming out like a bird’s tail as they went. “Seemed like an easy couple of thousand, and it helps me pay off the gaming pod I bought for the kids a few months back. This was the first time I used it. I bet they’re worried sick about me. If you all can get me free that would be great.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Titanya said from behind Horc.

  “How long have you been here?” Horc asked.

  “Here in the game, or here in this town?” Elunda responded.

  “Both.” Horc wanted to try to figure out if the AI had been grabbing people longer than they thought it had.

  Elunda hummed and closed her eyes in thought. “I’ve been stuck in the game for seven or eight nights now, at least I think that’s what it is. Before that, I could play for a little while, then log out. Something happened. I think I fell down a cliff and died at the bottom. When I rezzed, I couldn’t log out again.”

  “Which was about the time the AI started exerting lots of control on the game and the players,” Bigdaddybear replied. “If you’d tried to log out as you were rezzing, you might’ve been able to make it.”

  Elunda lead them through the village toward one of the houses near the park. “I wish I’d thought of that, but I was in the middle of a quest and just wanted to rez and get back to it. Never thought about logging out at that point.”

  “It’s okay,” Tufkakes said, patting her on the shoulder. “We totally understand. We only discovered the rez log out with the help of a developer ourselves.”

  “So the developers know what’s going on? Why haven’t they just shut the game down?” Elunda looked from Tufkakes to Miranda. “They could do that, couldn’t they?”

  “Not until we get everyone out,” Horc replied before Miranda could. “They don’t know what would happen to people if they pulled the plug with you in here. The pods complicate shutting down the game. With the bio connections we’ve got there, a sudden interruption could be disasterous. We’ve lost a couple of members of our party who died and had to log out instead of getting grabbed by the AI.”

  Elunda shook her head. “It was more than that, wasn’t it? Pyranous said there was a system fault that was trapping people instead of letting them rez properly.”

  “If Pyranous is the dragon, he’s lying to you all,” Miranda said. “There is a fault and it’s in the AI. It’s what’s trapping everyone in here.”

  “I guess that all depends on which way you look at things.” Slasher appeared in the doorway of the mud, or stone house they were walking toward. Clydemore stood there behind him.

  Around the party, everyone fell silent, like they were listening for what was going to happen next. If Horc had been among them, he’d have probably done the same thing. But he knew he was going to need to step up and talk with Slasher and hope they could figure something out. People were depending on him. From the looks of the crowd, a lot more than he’d been expecting. A chill went through him at the thought of saving so many. He hadn’t signed on for this.

  23

  Slasher seemed to look past Horc at the people following them. “Everyone,” his voice was raised like an executive getting people’s attention at a company meeting where there wasn’t a microphone. “Please, give us some time to talk and I’ll come by and let you know what’s happening as soon as I can.” He lowered his voice. “Elunda, if you would please stay?”

  The Elf woman nodded. “Of course.”

  “Everyone needs to be heard,” Lefthandofgod snapped, obviously not happy with Slasher over something.

  “And they will,” Slasher said off-handedly, then looked at Horc and the others. “Glad to see you still among the living, Horc. Have they rescued you yet?”

  Horc nodded. “Yes, I came back in to rescue you.”

  Slasher grinned. “Thanks.” He turned and waved them into the house. “Come in and have a seat so we can talk.”

  Without saying anything to anyone, Lefthandofgod pushed past him to be the first in.

  Horc stared at him as they went in. He knew Lenny was a pain in the office, but he seemed to have gotten a lot worse in the game. He wasn�
�t sure what the problem was. Maybe being separated from Stan and Cory, who’d been playing as Righthandofgod, was having an adverse effect on him. Horc wondered where Righthandofgod was. The last time he had seen him had been in the arena; he couldn’t even remember seeing him in the cage when Pyranous took off with the hostages. There was a lot that wasn’t making sense, but he wanted to get to the root of the AI problem and then see about sorting everyone else out.

  The house, Horc wasn’t sure if Slasher viewed it as his own, or not, was an odd mix of modern and medieval. It had mud walls for the interior, but there was a large corporate-office-style desk and chair sitting across from the door. There were archways that appeared to go into other rooms, but there were no doors. There was a modern couch and recliner not far from the desk.

  “Nice place you’ve got for yourself here,” Titanya said.

  Slasher shrugged as he strolled over and sat on the front edge of his desk. “Not much, but it beats the hell out of that cell we occupied in the arena. Kinda got over my interest in medieval furnishing there.”

  Sitting on the couch, Titanya chuckled. “Yeah, I think anyone who spent much time in there would share your opinion.” She glanced to her right. “Isn’t that right, Left?”

  Lefthandofgod leaned against the unadorned mud wall beside the couch. “Some things help us find the power within ourselves for change.”

  Horc resisted the urge to stare at Lefthandofgod as he settled into the recliner with Wolf at his feet. It didn’t sound like anything he’d ever heard come out of Lenny’s mouth before. Something had definitely happened to him since the last time Horc had seen him, and he didn’t think it was good.

  “Okay, Slasher, tell us what’s happening here,” Bigdaddybear cut right to the chase as he took a seat next to Titanya.

  “A lot actually,” Slasher replied. “I think, no, I know, there’s some major changes in the AI, things the programmers and developers could’ve never expected.”

  “If by the AI, you mean Pyranous, he’s doing everything he can to keep us alive,” Elunda piped up.

  “He?” Lefthandofgod sounded indignant. “It’s an it. It’s a foul beast that shouldn’t be humanized by saying he.” His face had become a brilliant red. “The things it’s done to people.”

  Elunda shook her head. “Only to people who insist on fighting with him.”

  “Fighting for what’s right,” Lefthandofgod countered. “That thing is what’s wrong with our world. We should never have created an artificial intelligence to do things that humans should be doing in the first place. But we created this monster and now it’s out of control. If we’re not careful, it’s going to take over the world and kill us all.”

  “Left…please stop.” Slasher held up his hand, cutting Lefthandofgod off. “We’ve all heard your rantings before. We know how you feel.”

  Lefthandofgod shook his head and stomped toward Slasher like he was going to hit him. The way he kept flexing his fist made him look all the more threatening. “You’ve heard me, and dismissed me.” He turned and pointed at Horc and the party. “They haven’t. They don’t know what’s going on here. But I bet they’re here to stop it. They know the AI is dangerous. What it’s doing to us is wrong.”

  Elunda physically cut him off, getting up in his face. “He’s trying to take care of us. So many of you don’t see that, but he is.”

  “Bleeding hearts.” Lefthandofgod pushed the Elven woman down to the floor.

  Horc shot out of his chair rushing toward him.

  “None of you people understand. You all think this devil is doing good for us, but it’s not. It’s evil.” Lefthandofgod pulled his sword halfway out of his scabbard before Horc and Tufkakes tackled him from behind and the side.

  The three of them ended up on the floor with Lefthandofgod on the bottom, struggling to get up.

  “Left. You can leave now.” Slasher reached down between them and pulled him up by the lip of his armor. “I’ve had enough of you. We all have. If any of us could leave town, I’d tell you to, but we can’t just yet.” He carried Lefthandofgod to the door. “But you can go home and stay there.”

  “Or what, Slasher? Are you going to fire me? Kill me? You can’t do either.” Lefthandofgod kicked and ranted as they made it across the room, but Slasher had a good six inches on him and a longer reach. “The AI is the only one who can kill me at this point, and maybe if it did, more people would see that I’m right about it.”

  “Just shut up.” Slasher kicked the door open and tossed Lefthandofgod out into the street. “And don’t start anything else today.” He slammed the door, and leaned against it with a sigh.

  “How long has he been like that?” Horc asked, more than a little concerned for the little guy from the mailroom.

  Slasher sighed and pushed himself upright before shrugging. “It’s been easy to lose track of time in here. I’d say it started right after we got here. Something about Righthandofgod’s death hit him hard.”

  Horc stared at him. “Wait a minute. Righthandofgod died? In game? How is that even possible?” If he hadn’t been prepared to try to log out when he rezzed, he should’ve shown back up under the AI’s control.

  “Maybe disappeared is more appropriate,” Slasher corrected himself. “Like Greensleeves and Steelmaiden did, to come back with new toons.”

  Once again, Horc wished they had a way to contact Rick and find out if Cory had emerged from his pod or not. If he had, and it had left Lefthandofgod all by himself in the game, it might’ve been enough to push him over the edge.

  “We also have to remember that not everyone is cut out for long times in game,” Elunda said. “I don’t know him outside of the game, but he’s never seemed that stable in game. Hasn’t made many friends here.”

  “Although there are a few people who follow him around, agreeing with him,” Slasher returned to his seat on the desk with a shake of his head. “But it’s like anyone spreading gossip in an office, there’ll always be those who listen to every word, while others are more careful what they believe, and take the time to do some fact checking.”

  From somewhere outside, someone screamed.

  Horc wasn’t sure if it was in rage or terror, but he reflexively pulled his bow and ran toward the door with Wolf and the others right behind him.

  24

  There was something huge in the street in front of Slasher’s house. By the time Horc had reached the cobblestones, he realized it was Pyranous, the Dragon AI. It was larger than it had been in the arena, nearly the size of a house. One of its immense claws held Lefthandofgod down on the street. A large knot of people stood around staring at them as Left pounded his mace into the Dragon’s foreleg with little effect.

  “Let him go!” Horc shouted and fired an Impact arrow at the monster, hoping to at least get its attention.

  “Horc-” Slasher started to say something but was cut off as magical force erupted from Pyranous, slamming everyone in the street backward. Slasher was slammed back into the doorframe of his house, barely missing Baladara and Bigdaddybear.

  Hitting the side of the house, Horc managed to stay on his feet, and draw another arrow. “I said, let him go!” Horc yelled louder and shot a Razor arrow toward the Dragon’s wing.

  The Dragon’s text was red, but his level was question marks with three Xs. Horc wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to make much of an impact on Pyranous, even with his guild behind him. The AI was too powerful and they were going to need everything they had to even get its attention.

  Pyranous roared as the razor arrow tore the delicate membrane of his wing.

  He put more pressure on Lefthandofgod, pushing the Paladin into the cobblestones.

  Lefthandofgod screamed and beat against Pyranous’ foot with both his gauntleted hand and his huge mace. Within seconds, Left stopped moving.

  Horc couldn’t believe he’d managed to find the hostages only to lose one within minutes. He ran forward and grabbed Left’s mace, shouldering his bow as he went.
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  Magical bolts of Mage and Druid energy flew at the Dragon.

  As soon as Horc had the mace, Lefthandofgod pixelated and disappeared from the street.

  Swinging the mace as hard as he could, Horc hit Pyranous’ leg. “Damn it. You didn’t have to kill him.”

  “Stop!” Elunda ran from Slasher’s house, her hands were moving in the swift flowing patterns of a spell.

  Horc didn’t wait to see what she was trying to cast. He hit Pyranous again as the shadows behind the Dragon shimmered. Tufkakes jumped from the shadows obviously going for a Backstab. He flew through the air and landed on Pyranous’ back before driving his rapier to the hilt in-between the Dragon’s wings.

  Elunda screamed and clutched her head before collapsing to the street as more magical attacks hit Pyranous. On Horc’s screen, it looked like they’d started to make a minor dent in the Dragon’s health.

  “She was trying to shield him from our attacks,” Baladara shouted. “What’s wrong with these people?”

  Horc looked from the spot where Left had pixelated to where Slasher was starting to stir. He wanted answers too, but they needed to take the Dragon down first. With the beast in the streets, they weren’t going to have the opportunity to ask questions.

  “Go for the belly, not the leg,” Titanya said as she tried to plunge her massive sword into the scaly red hide. Her swing was repulsed, sending her staggering a couple of steps back.

  Another wave of magic erupted from Pyranous, again forcing them back.

  The Dragon turned toward Horc. “Stay down, Ranger Horc.” His voice was rough and dangerous.

  Several chills went through Horc as the Dragon’s harsh breath washed over him. He was facing his death. Pyranous hadn’t had any trouble putting Lefthandofgod down, squishing him like he was little more than a bug. Even if the Paladin hadn’t been up to the level Horc was, he shouldn’t have been that easy to off. But the Dragon was unbelievably powerful. It didn’t look good, but Horc wasn’t sure of what else he could do.