Dan made a helpless gesture. He was done. Frag was tapping his dagger against his cup while the other officers conferred in low voices, discussing Dan's speech. I, too, was worried about this new unknown force. If government security agencies started having the upper hand over regular perma players, that could lead to no good at all. Absolute power corrupts people. It makes them lose any sense of reality. The Cats' example was enough.
One of the analysts in charge of monitoring the media channels rose. "General, the Cats clan has just announced its voluntary dissolution. The remaining two castles are put up for auction. Formally, the clan and its property have ceased to exist. Does that mean we've won?"
"They've legged it," the General spat. "Fucking lowlifes. Those who can will make new characters for themselves. Their permas will predictably escape to the British cluster. Now, take this down: put all the Cats on our clan's KOS list. When we hold this press conference, we'll recommend everyone to do the same."
The remaining discussions dealt with some minor clan issues. I apologized and sneaked out.
Once outside, I paused wondering whether I still needed anything there. Then I activated the teleport and headed for the East Castle. Yawning, I dragged my feet to my apartment—Winnie-free, to my delight—and collapsed into bed.
I woke up late in the afternoon when Taali who by then knew my personal preferences had crept through the door and placed a plateful of Russian salad right under my nose. By then, I was half-awake and smelled my favorite chow at the second whiff.
"Supper in bed!" she announced, filling a clay mug with kvass. "Go ahead, munch away. I expect all the details once you've eaten. I've been choking on their forums and their tabloid lies. Dan has a really sick imagination judging by the search requests he wanted me to monitor."
I'd almost finished sharing the news with her when Cryl PM'd me. Wassup? U here? Fancy coming to the small hall?
I typed OK and turned back to Taali. "I want you to meet Cryl. He's cool. He's in perma mode too, so he's one of us."
We walked down to the small hall and stopped in the doorway, unsure whether to enter. A girl stood by an open window, her stare frozen in front of her. This was Lena from the Cats' castle. I didn't even know they'd rescued her. Cryl was fussing around her, his eyes suspiciously moist. Noticing us, he placed a finger to his lips and whispered something to the girl, soothing her, before walking over to us.
He gave me a strong handshake. "Thanks, bro. I won't forget what you've done for us."
I waved him away and nodded toward Lena. "How is she?"
He sniffed. "Not good. She blocks everything out. You can take her hand and lead her wherever you want like a stray calf. If you give her an apple, she'll eat it. If you put it on the table in front of her, she'll just sit there without noticing it."
Taali's eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth. "Is she the girl you told me about? Lena, right? The one they raped?"
Cryl answered instead, "The Vets' doc says he doesn't think she's been raped. She doesn't appear frightened when you ask her to remove some items of clothing. She just blocks you out. According to him, the combination of stress and fear had triggered a shut-down: she's locked herself inside her mind, bolted all the doors and windows and thrown away the key. So now she just can't get out."
"Listen, guys, we've got to do something!" Taali said in a low voice, grabbing our hands. We nodded in unison.
"Doc thinks all she needs is lots of positivity, care and attention. Alternatively, a strong emotional shock could do the trick, preferably a positive one. I'm thinking of taking her outside the town wall, finding some nice spot there. But I don't know the area very well yet..."
"I know a place," I said. "There's a lovely spot nearby, lots of sunshine and flowers, some non-aggressive bunnies running about. Have you already changed your bind point to the castle? Then take Lena and let's go. Still, I don't think it will be enough. I have an idea, though. Tell me what you know about her, every little detail."
Putting my idea into action took me another day and cost me over twenty grand. My inner greedy pig silently handed me the money, sharing our enthusiasm for the cause.
The next morning was sunlit and quiet as our group arrived at my favorite spot. Butterflies fluttered over the flowers still wet with dew. Cryl caught a baby rabbit and handed it to Lena. Although still spaced out, she fingered the bunny's ears thoughtfully as the creature calmed down, enjoying her touch. Unfortunately, that was the extent of her progress.
Then we heard quiet voices and the shuffling of footsteps approaching. I tensed up, my heart pounding at 200 bpm's. Taali pressed an unfinished garland to her chest, anxious. Now...
"Lena?" we heard a woman's voice, indescribably warm and comfy.
The girl startled. Insecure, she turned her head. Her eyes opened wide, filling with tears that poured out, striping her cheeks.
"Mom? Mommy?"
She jumped up, dropping the flowers from her lap. The scared bunny leapt off and disappeared. Stumbling as she ran, her legs tangled in her skirt, the girl rushed toward the kneeling figure. The woman cried openly, reaching out to her.
"Mommy? Where have you been? I've been waiting for you..."
Chapter Six
M emo:
Arizona 6, a classified virtual space and perma effect research facility.
Research staff: 1,446
Hired staff: 41,522
Security unit: 1,933
Laboratories: 76
Virtual capsules: 16,000
Annual budget: $2,600,000,000.00
The Tempus project progress report:
We have chosen AlterWorld as our default virtual world due to its officially largest digitized population as well as its fast-growing self-sufficiency and independence.
At our request, the AlterWorld corporation has developed a large body of unique spells and gear items. They have also provided us with an uncategorized Super Nova castle for all our internal Tempus Project needs and experiments.
Four months ago, eight thousand of our staff were subjected to medically induced full virtual immersion using premium class equipment. They were given a piece of gold as target and asked to begin casting a specially-created teleportation spell in order to teleport this object to a so-called Alpha Zone. In doing so, two important conditions were observed:
The casters didn't know that Alpha Zone was a real-life sterile installation within Lab 14.
They hadn't been informed of the spell's artificial nature, each of them believing it was a regular level 1 skill and that the purpose of their efforts was to level up their magic powers through repeated systematic training.
Three months and 5,184,103,322 spell activations later, our equipment detected a brief occurrence of the coin in Alpha Zone. The duration of the occurrence amounted to 0,09 sec. Unfortunately, the occurrence later proved to be a high performance illusion as other equipment had failed to register the presence of any material object. The first sighting was immediately followed by an avalanche of new illusions of teleported coins as the result of all other spell castings.