Devil's Waltz Read online

  Gabrielle chewed her lower lip. The beginnings of her glorious dark continent were floating on the thinnest of ice. There wasn’t a thing she could do to thicken that ice other than... nothing. The few remaining Demons would crumble against those light cannons; the Demonic Trebuchets were out of range thanks to all that deep, ruddy seawater; and Rowan’s lousy Undead couldn’t swim or fly apart from the eagle. Zaine’s three Nihils were even more limited in the range department; and they feared death like wimpy doggies. Ambiguous and the other darkies were weaker than the Nihils. Gabrielle couldn’t swat all these flies by herself.

  A lousy tier six support boss couldn’t summon whole armies. A lousy Occult Engineer was only good for building a civilization and keeping it afloat with magical gizmos and functional buildings including Advanced Shield Battery, Basic Dark Farm, Magic Campfire, and many others. All great crafting recipes she’d received from those dungeon runs or found in Zaine’s lair. Just no defensive structures yet… like a mana canon tower.

  One of those would be handy to deter that zeppelin. It wafted into a healthy sieging range and shot blasts of white-hot fire from a ruby gem at its tip. The shield’s point bar drained at a painful-to-watch rate. In a day at most, it’d ding zero. Here, their sieging capability was abysmal, admittedly. They needed their heavy-duty equipment elsewhere throughout the world.

  But it was starting to look very, very lame. The town could be in danger. If Rowan wasn’t back soon, there was no option other than organizing a retreat. The Dark Humans would be saved for another seventy hours at least. It would take a miracle to save the town.

  Like a dragon coming to her rescue.

  Gabrielle reached into her pouch and fetched Redwing, holding the teddy high. "Heya, Red! If ya could turn into a fully grown dragon boss right now, I’ll feed ya Rowan’s corpse later." A Divine Intervention would have to be used if Rowan wasn’t back soon. Gabrielle preferred to save it for something else. Something better.

  Redwing waved his cotton arms up and down as if to say, 'Mmmmm, yummy! I’d love to chew on that cute dummy!'

  "Heh. Of course, ya would." Seeing he wasn’t going to transform in the near-future, she dropped him back into the darkness, then fetched Zaine’s soul anchor. "Now would be a good time to come back to life…"

  The red teddy’s beady black eyes gazed at her as if to say, 'Waaa! Waaa! You lied about Zar’s anchors being held here!'

  Still going on about that. Even in death. "Hmph. Stupid boy. Shouldn’t have gotten sealed in the first place. Be more thankful we unsealed ya." She placed the anchor back into her pouch. Her fingers brushed against two other teddies with moving arms, not one.

  Oh right! Him. "Come out, meanie Pally!" With a stranglehold on the white teddy, Gabrielle lifted the little guy to her eyes. She grinned with half-authentic craze. "Got anything to say?"

  A few ticks of the system clock echoed. Its arms began flailing up and down as if to say, 'You’ll never win, LeMort! You see that that fleet out there?! Your demise is nigh!'

  "Nope. You’re wrong." Her grip tightened into a friendly vice. "I’ll figure somethin’ out, like usual. Just like yesterday."

  'You’re delusional, LeMort! You won out of sheer luck, not skill! Today will be your end, and your precious Dark Humans will perish!'

  "That won’t ever happen, and ya know it." She flicked its woolen ear.

  A thunderous round of artillery impacted the shield as those patchwork arms danced. 'Do you hear that?! That is the music of your defeat! You are weak filth! No wonder Black abandoned you!'

  Gabrielle’s eye twitched. "He didn’t abandon me. He’s just being a dummy again." Abandonment would mean betrayal, and betrayal would mean death. So, so, so much was riding on this plan. The Order would go berserk on the boy. Not berserk. More like restrained, seething anger.

  The meanie Pally pointed at her with a stitched arm. 'No man would ever want someone as vile as you, LeMort! I bet he swallows vomit at the sight!'

  "Nope. Nope. Nope! You’re wrong." She whacked it behind the head. "I’m the most attractive World Boss in the game."

  If the teddy could’ve sneered, it would have. 'He doesn’t want to sleep with you because your abnormal personality disgusts him.'

  Her face deadened. She rammed the blasted stuffed toy into her pouch. "Have another day of solitary confinement… meanie."

  Puffing out a cheek, she glanced at the fleet one last time, then turned.

  Ambiguous, the twins, and some of the Dark Humans stood at the harbor’s entrance between two damaged shop buildings, staring with big judging eyes. The dizygotic twins, SoSo Lovely and Edward Farmer, were the worst as usual. The few children looked almost afraid. The mayor and adults were concerned or were faking concern, their sharper facial feature difficult to read. Oh, and Seth the Nihil also lingered at the side with unreadable stoicism. And Ambiguous was ambiguous, even more stoic than bat-boy.

  "Oh no. I think she’s finally lost it," SoSo said.

  "Indeed, I believe she has. I was wondering when it would happen," Edward followed on without pause in their usual way of alternating speech they sometimes liked to play. Cute, but annoying. Like now.

  SoSo shrugged. "It had to happen sometime. But now? Is it the stress?"

  "Yes. Most inconvenient. I was starting to like this place. A few of the Dark Human ladies too."

  Booms from behind rattled the shield overhead, waves rippling across the dome. Gabrielle tuned down those ridiculous sound effects.

  SoSo peeked up at the straining shield. "It’s a shame that we haven’t any boats. Apart from our cozy yacht."

  "Not to worry.” Edward licked his lips. “The real fight starts soon. When those ships break through. It will be a quick fight for them, however."

  "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up." Gabrielle’s hand drifted to her wand holster. "We’re not gonna lose! And that shield isn’t gonna fall!"

  "Alright," Ambiguous said, stepping between the two. "I think we get it. Let’s not make her snap for real."

  The mayor cleared his throat. "Um. Yes, let’s discuss our course of action. I for one believe a preemptive tactical fallback may be necessary—"

  This again. "No early retreats." Gabrielle pointed her wand at the bumbling man. "Is that hard to understand?"

  His square face hardened, neck tendons swelling. "Please, let’s not fight among ourselves when an insurmountable force is at our shield. It is in my opinion that we would gain a significant head start if we evacuate now. May I remind you that it is in our common dark gods’ desire that we get along and work together in this world of adversary—"

  "Shut up, monkey!" Her wand twirled. "Lacerate," she hissed in the dark language, coldly smiling.

  The mayor flinched, and the children dove for cover.

  Pretty indigo illuminated the harbor, Ambiguous blinking into the way. The low-power curse splintered against her shield into strands of fibrous dark mana. She looked over her shoulder and said in a voice of bleak authority, "Everyone, leave. I’ll talk to her. Alone. You’re not helping."

  Gabrielle mentally slapped herself before her wand did something naughty again. "Good idea," she chirped. "Go help the Worker Dolls demolish and recycle building materials. The lot of ya!"

  Seth flew away without a care in the world. His wings trailed dusty dark mana. Good bat-boy.

  The mayor, the accompanying two adults, and the few children seemed to get the message after an exchange of soundless words with Ambiguous. They scuttled away; however, Viola, Gabrielle’s favorite teen by far among the younglings, hesitated with shifty eyes and mumbled, "But Lady LeMort, I—"

  "Not now. Just keep sparring, kay?" A scoop of kindness for the girl.

  "Okay." Viola sprinted.

  Edward was about to say something, but Ambiguous cut him off with an ambivalent wave. "Just go. Shoo."

  "Oh, fine." SoSo took hold of Edward’s elbow and disappeared with a static buzzing noise. Static Step. Like Puff or any variant of Blink but less magical.


  "So." Ambiguous sighed, a hand on her curvy hip, which was curvier than Gabrielle’s. She was taller and tanner too. So unfair.

  "So what? This better not be a proposal for an early retreat. Cus I’ll curse ya."

  "So what did your white teddy bear say?"

  Oh. "Just some dumb things."

  "Similar to what they said?"

  "Yup…" That was definitely all it had said and nothing else. Gabrielle surely couldn’t remember what else it had said if it had said anything at all. It was just a white teddy with an NPC’s soul. It couldn’t possibly know whether or not her grouchy whatever his name was had betrayed her. No way.

  Ambiguous’ sleek eyebrow arched. "And what else?"

  "Nothin."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yup." Gabrielle put her mouthful of flawless shiny teeth on display.

  "Was it about Rowan?" A knowing look emerged on her pretty features.

  Grrrr. How the heck did she know? "Maybe."

  "You’re not forgetting about the ten-to-one time compression, are you?"

  Gabrielle deadpanned. That super pretty Mana Shield appeared and intercepted a slap. "No."

  "Then what is it?"

  Hmmm. A lie had to be spun up here. Though Ambiguous was more trustworthy than everyone else, she was neither part of the Order nor one of their assets like Rowan. But what would be a good lie? Gabrielle’s lips twisted and pinched in thought, wrinkling uncomfortably. The soles of her feet itched.

  "Well?" Ambiguous laid a soft palm on Gabrielle’s shoulder.

  What to say? "Ahhh…" Her eyes wandered left, right, up, and—

  The Social icon had a little yellow exclamation mark with the number two next to it. Phew. Just in time.

  "Got mail!" Gabrielle sang, opening the interface with the hum of a tune. "One sec." The first mail was from Uncle Vincent. He’d finally responded to the question she’d sent to him and Darius hours ago. The freaking time compression was sometimes torturous.

  Gabrielle opened the letter. A tad of worry hooked into her belly.

  Vincent Roth: Rowan is in critical condition and won’t be able to login for at least another 24 hours. I miscalculated.

  Orgasmic relief flushed throughout her innards till warmth brimmed at the tippy-top of her head. Rowan hadn’t left her and betrayed the order. He was just in critical condition! Everything was okay. He was just in critical condition and not on a plane to Antarctica. It was nothing to worry over. Her ticket to a grand victory was safe—for now.

  Gabrielle skipped to the next mail while a decent explanation for Ambiguous began to sprout.

  Darius Roth: Rowan is with Vincent at the moment (I assume you also received his mail). We are shortly bringing the game down for maintenance to buy time for his recovery—and to gather feedback on player World Bosses other than him. There will be adjustments to the plan.

  "Huh?" she blurted. Bringing the game down for maintenance… How could something like that ever work?

  "What is it?" Ambiguous asked, a hint of irritation leaking into her voice.

  Gabrielle lied smoothly, "Rowan just mailed me. He says he went to take a nap. He’ll be back after getting some food. No worries!"

  Ambiguous pinched her nose and massaged her brow for eight long strokes before she made eye contact again. "See. Nothing’s wrong."

  "Yuppers. I overreacted!" Gabrielle spread her arms wide, smiling a genuine smile. "He didn’t leave me."

  Ambiguous massaged her own forehead with a thumb and index finger. "Of course he didn’t. You’re our only support."

  Hehehe. Indeed she did. Of course, Rowan wouldn’t be so disloyal and useless like all the other boys from her tumultuous past. "Yep. And I’m the most attractive Occult Eng—"

  A plain-looking frosted glassy box expanded in the middle of Gabrielle’s view.

  System Announcement: Aeon Chronicles Online will be entering offline maintenance in five minutes. Please conclude your current activity and log out. More information will shortly be posted in the beta forums. Thank you.

  They must’ve been waiting for me to read the email. How polite.

  "What?!" Ambiguous hacked. "Offline maintenance?"

  "Huh. That’s strange." Gabrielle shrugged. "Oh well. Better log off." She hit the logout button.

  "Hey. Wai—"

  Nevermind her. Now was opportune to find out exactly what happened to Rowan and how Darius was going to justify offline maintenance. Gabrielle couldn’t recall a single instance of an online game or anything online dropping dead for maintenance. Only a natural disaster or major accident could cause it. The playerbase sure wasn’t going to be happy about this. Terrible PR too.

  Gabrielle found herself in her lacy underwear once more cushioned by her pod’s warm gel lining. Whoever had designed this contraption wasn’t paid enough.

  She hopped out, briefly considered putting on an outfit, and instead donned nothing but a trench coat from the depths of her walk-in closet along with a zapper strapped to her wrist. Rowan was in for a treat—or a lot of pain. She would make sure he would never dare to abandon her and the order one way or another.

  Hehehehehe.

  Chapter 3

  Mental Health

  In a dimly lit room one floor below ground level, a cylindrical glass tank held a young man’s body suspended in viscous fluid saturated with human stem-cells, medical nano-machines, and other key nutrients and regenerative compounds. Wires connected to taped-on sensors fed data to a medical automaton, and an overhead forest of tubes delivered oxygen and a similar fluid aiding internal regeneration.

  The diminutive injuries Rowan’s brain had suffered was healing finely, but Vincent Roth was still puzzled.

  The boy’s neural connections were structured in a way which wasn’t natural. The pathways were a chaotic and tangled spaghetti mess. It was as though the game’s AI had done a total rewrite over existing pathways, and in doing so, it had caused a major hemorrhage.

  But why? The AI understood well the limits of the organic carbon-based brain and the risks of any direct data transfer operation other than addition. Removal or alteration of existing neural structures were highly intrusive and carried a significant chance of blood vessel rupture. Only the most resilient brains could withstand anything other than accelerated natural addition.

  Rowan’s physiology clearly could not. His genes were not impressive, and though his brain was more intelligent than average, its resilience was low. It was a miracle that the damage was somewhat minimal and localized near the…

  Implants.

  Chuckling, Vincent shook his head and entered a series of commands through the Holo-Keyboard terminal. "You sneaky quantum computer," he mumbled.

  Low and behold, the remaining implants’ programming were completely different. Instead of painting him with the profile of a one-dimensional, rage-filled, remorseless killer, the implants were now guiding him back toward what he’d been before the wolf attack. Except close to four-fifths had already biodegraded, replaced with organic tissue.

  The boy was now an amalgamation of his programmed and past self.

  Why? This was not part of the special directive. This wasn’t part of any directive.

  The boy was to be defeated in the end, then promptly disposed of, thrown away as another patsy for society to loath. An unrelatable killer and perhaps rapist made a perfect villain. Now he was far from perfect. He was even likable to a very limited extent. A change such as this would ruin everything.

  One line of action glimmered in the dark from here: the implants were to be reconfigured, and the AI required tweaking.

  Vincent ground his teeth and braced for the painful manual work of reprogramming the implants. He did not abhor manual work… if the AI had not made a mess. The artificial pathways were cluttered and organized illogically, the hallmark of an amateur, a first-time attempt. Which was impressive—for an AI.

  But… Vincent needed to know why it had done this. He wasn’t going to let it make a fool of
him! Just because it had the computational power of a quantum supercomputer didn’t make it superior. It was merely hardware. He had a fully-functional, top-percentile, organic brain. Even if every neuron and every connection could be simulated, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t conscious. Vincent did not believe so.

  It wasn’t perfect either; the inaccurate forecasts said it all. The seventy-percent accurate forecasts were useless now. Artificial intelligence made mistakes all the time. It learned like regular, organic intelligence—the whole point. Aeon Chronicles alpha had been a mess at the beginning, directive implementations fudged and corrected on a weekly basis.