Charles Stross - Halting State

You’re panting as you take the escalator steps two at a time, racing up them and along the corridor against the flow of bodies coming out of the conference room. It’s bang on the hour, and the program items are all changing in lockstep, creating swirling vortices of bodies to drown in. Room 112 is round a corner, and as you get to it, you see that the door’s wedged open and it’s almost empty. There are tables up and down each wall, with laptops open on them in neat rows linked together with security cables: They’ve been running some kind of demo. A dozen or so people are milling around, some of them poking at keyboards and some of them just chatting. You look at them with Zone-enabled eyes and see blank-faced noobs and a solitary, glum-looking Orc pounding a keyboard. An azure gemstone revolves above his head, his guilt engraved upon it.

You twitch all your personae except Theodore G. Bear into invisibility as you walk up to him. “I’m here about the auction,” you say to his hunched shoulder.

The Orc yelps and spins round, catching the edge of the laptop screen with one sleeve and nearly sending it flying. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Get real,” you say. Then you remember to be polite: You might have to hand this over to the cops, right? “You’re auctioning a bunch of Kensu content, prestige items. You didn’t get them the usual way. Did you expect nobody would notice?”

The Orc cowers. His Zonespace muscles may be green and rippling, but in meatspace he’s just a scrawny little guy, possibly not even out of his teens. You’re no muscle-bound hulk, but you don’t look as if a strong breeze could blow you away: And besides, you’ve got the advantage of surprise on your side. “What do you want?” he quavers.

“Information.” You fabricate an unfriendly smile. “How you got the items, for starters. Who from, and when, and where. Right now, this is still an internal investigation, but Kensu are looking to set their lawyers on whoever carried out the heist. You can reduce your exposure by co-operating fully.”

Chen glances from side to side, hunting a way out. “I don’t know anything!” he protests. “I got this loot from the clubhouse basement! Someone else put it there—”

“Tell me where the clubhouse is. Tell me when you got it.”

“You think I’m stupid?”

He’s selling loot behind their backs; that’s a weak spot. You tweak your smile slightly. “No, I think you’re trying to make some extra money. Which is why I’m here. We can do this off-line, if you want—nobody needs to know.”

His sidelong glances slow down. “You’re crazy, man,” he hisses. “I don’t know anything.”

“You know about the clubhouse.” He tenses: Oops, back off. “Look, I’m not after you. I’m trying to get my teeth into them . Ten thousand euros in blind DigiCash for what you know, starting with the clubhouse’s Zone co-ordinates.”

Ten K is a respectable sum—it’s more than you used to earn in a month—but you’re pretty sure that Elaine will sign off on it without blinking if it gets you hard information. Chen looks like he’s considering it. Then he shakes his head rapidly. “Not enough. You think I’m crazy? Guoanbu will have my kidneys if I give you that!”

“Fifteen,” you say without waiting. He begins to turn his head away. “Twenty.” He looks back at you.

“Not enough. This conversation is over.”

“I can go higher, but I need clearance,” you tell him. Which is bending the truth—you couldn’t even make either of the earlier figures stick without permission—but it’s a hook; question is, will he bite?

“Two million, and witness protection, and I tell you everything,” he says flatly. “A new identity. You can arrange that, yes?”

“Huh?” You gape at the Orc like he’s grown a second head. It’s an out-of-context problem, you suddenly realize. “You think I’m the government?”

He looks at you with an expression of equal parts contempt and desperation, then flicks down his glasses and bangs out on the wings of a teleport spell, elsewhere into Avalon. But spells have echoes, and the fleeing Orc isn’t as hot as he thinks; you’ve got admin permissions thanks to Hayek Associates’ pull, and you IM Venkmann a brisk note as you follow him. You find yourself in a cellar, dank and stone-floored: The walls are almost completely hidden by racks of weapons and closed treasure-chests. There’s also a very surprised Orc. He reaches over his back and pulls a sword on you, then attacks. “Leave me alone!” he yells.

Simultaneously, back in the real world, something punches you hard in your side, rocking you back on your feet. You stagger, and the motion sensors in your glasses cut them back to semi-transparent—an emergency measure—and you see Mr. Wu Chen run through the doorway. You feel a little dizzy and instinctively raise your hand. It’s just a dagger strike—no real hit points to it—so you stagger after Chen.

The translucent Orc tries to bring his big blue-glowing cleaver of a broadsword down on your ursine head, but you’re armoured up to munchkin levels and deflect it with ease. You stumble as you go through the doorway, chasing the fleeing student, and there’s something odd about your jacket, a crunching, broken feeling. Something is hanging out of your left pocket. You grab hold of it and there’s a sudden sharp flash of pain as you stick something sharp into your hand. “Shit!” you swear, and turn your glasses fully transparent.

There’s a short-bladed knife embedded in the remains of what used to be your pocket folding keyboard, and your hand is dripping blood where you grabbed hold of the blade. Elaine is coming through the door, looking annoyed. “He stabbed me,” you say, and sit down hard on the nearest chair. “He…stabbed…me…?”

The keyboard caught it. No surprise there—you rarely go outdoors without a keyboard, mouse, phone, spare PDA, and selection of witty repartee—but you’re at a loss for words. You flick your glasses back to the fight scene as Elaine swears and grabs your left hand. The Orc is backed into a corner, whaling away at you with a virtual pigsticker.

WHATS UP? IMs Venkmann.

“Track me in Zone,” you tell the half-empty room as Elaine presses a tissue onto your hand. “I’m where the loot is, and the guy beating up on me knows how it got there.”

“Next time leave the fighting to me,” Elaine tells you. She sounds pissed.

“But he stabbed me—” Your hand is hurting.

“No, he stabbed a piece of junk in one of your pockets.”

“I’m going to nail him!” You twitch your right hand, unlimbering the blunderbuss of +6 dungeon clearing.

“No, you’re going to come with me and file a report to Security, then we’re going to sit down and have a nice cup of tea and a chat with Constable Friendly. Believe me, you don’t want to be chasing after a violent assailant—”

“No, I mean, in Avalon Six.” You’re seeing red now. The blunderbuss booms, sparking and filling the cellar with smoke. There’s a very badly damaged Orc in front of you, backing desperately towards a doorway, as Theodore T. Bear snarls a bass rumble and reloads. “I said I was here for the auction, and he freaked. But I found the loot.”

“You.” She crowds you back against the table and abruptly reaches forward and pulls your gaming glasses right off your face.

“Hey!” you protest, nose to nose with her, so uncomfortably close that you can smell her breath, a mixture of stale coffee and a faint fragrance you can’t quite identify, eyeball to eyeball with her worried expression. “I was getting somewhere—”

“Russell can track him through Zone. You’ve got a confirmed ID, but more importantly, you got yourself assaulted. This isn’t a game, Jack. You don’t want to find him! You want the police to deal with it. Don’t worry about evidence, there are two security cams in every room and hallway.”