‘Did you steal his program?’
‘Yes! Yes I damned well did! And I did the right thing, you hear me?’
‘You blackmailed him? Robbed him? Terrorised him?’
‘Yes if you must put it like that. But it didn’t work, okay? I never found a complete version of Elysium anywhere. Nothing I could do anything with. So get a grip on yourself.’
Adrian turned around. ‘Helen, let him go.’
‘No, I’ll let him fall, nothing else. Out of the way.’
Adrian didn’t budge. Helen put her death’s head to one side. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and gave him a punch that sent him right across the room to the opposite wall.
Nick and Victor reacted at the same time – they jumped on Helen from behind – Victor pushed her to the floor with his weight, while Nick tried to get at the hand that held the gun.
Helen fought them off with all her strength. ‘Let go of me! I’m the last warrior who can win the battle!’
‘There’s no battle,’ Nick gasped. ‘There’s no messenger, and no more orders. Stop it, Helen! Please!’
‘Traitor!’ she screamed.
Then something went bang right next to Nick, so loud that at first he thought he must be dead. Shot dead. The next second he realised that Helen’s bullet had only hit the wall, but the shock had made him loosen his grip. Helen twisted round and shot at Ortolan, who was in the process of clambering back through the window into the office.
She hit him in the side. For a moment he stood there, as if frozen in position, half inside, half outside, then he slowly collapsed backwards.
Nick saw a leaping black shadow shoot towards Ortolan and grab his arm. Victor. He dragged the man over the windowsill into the office, and laid him on the floor. Blood was colouring Ortolan’s shirt red.
‘Did it,’ Helen panted behind the mask. ‘I knew it would work.’
The shock that had paralysed Nick’s brain was dispersing, but it still took a few heartbeats before he had his body under control again. He ripped the gun out of Helen’s hand and gave it to Victor.
‘What do we do now? Look how he’s bleeding . . . We need an ambulance.’
One of the two tied-up men held his hands up. ‘Cut the tape, and I’ll see to his injury. Quickly!’
Nick did what the man said. He felt peculiar, dizzy. As if he was about to keel over. ‘We need an ambulance,’ he repeated.
Sitting down was suddenly a good idea. Black and white dots danced in front of his eyes; the black ones were multiplying. He groped his way to a chair, bent over and waited for the light-headedness to pass.
When he looked up again, Helen was sitting next to him. She was studying her hands. Someone should hold her down, Nick thought. But she’s not running away.
Footsteps on the stairs. One of the lifts was humming, too. Help was on the way; for some of them at least. For others . . .
‘Helen?’ he asked, and took her skull mask off, revealing her broad, sweat-soaked yet contented face.
‘Don’t call me Helen,’ she said. ‘I am BloodWork.’
Police, doctors, paramedics. The office was full of people who were all talking at once. First they carried the injured Ortolan out and attended to Colin, who had suspected broken ribs and possibly a ruptured spleen. Ortolan had snatched the baseball bat from him and dealt him several blows to the stomach, one of the employees told them. Nick was amazed that Helen hadn’t shot Ortolan straightaway because of it – perhaps it was because she had always hated Colin.
Before they carried him away, Colin called out to Nick, who leaned down to him. Colin grabbed his hand.
‘Will you testify for me, Nick? They’re going to prosecute me and lump me in with Helen. But I would never have fired; I’d chosen the bat specially. Please.’
Nick found it hard not to pull his hand away from Colin. ‘It’s . . . too soon now. Maybe. Yes. Please let go.’
‘It wasn’t me with Jamie either. I swear.’
‘I know,’ Nick said.
They carried Colin to the ambulance and Nick accompanied the police officers to the station for questioning.
It’s easy to let go, once you have made the decision to. I look around and I feel like laughing. All this will soon be in the past, and I myself will only be a memory – painful for some, awkward for others.
My work is finished. I won’t ever find out what happens. How fortunate. I will not be tempted to intervene, to change the course of events.
Countless possibilities exist in the future, waiting to happen. I feel no curiosity. If curiosity were present, would I stay? I don’t know. I’m tired. That, too, makes it easy to let go.
CHAPTER 33
Through the sheeting rain, the Whittington Hospital was a massive grey-brown hulk. Nick had pulled his hood down over his forehead, but he was still getting wet. He’d stowed the small package of Jamie’s favourite chocolate safely in the inside pocket of his rain jacket.
The room was on the third floor. As he stood outside the door, Nick felt the overwhelming desire to turn tail and run. ‘He’s awake,’ Mr Watson had said. ‘But he’s not very well yet.’ No-one had asked for details.
Nick knocked. Knocked again. No answer. He opened the door, full of foreboding.
Two beds: one was empty, Jamie lay in the other one. He looked small. Fragile. Nick took a deep breath.
‘Hi, Jamie. It’s me, Nick. I heard you’re getting better, so I thought I’d drop in.’
Jamie didn’t move. His head was turned towards the wall. One half was shaved, similar to Kate’s, except that in Jamie’s case there was a scar across the bare patch.
‘I brought you something.’ Nick pulled the package out of his jacket and slowly approached. He saw Jamie’s face. He was lying with his mouth half open, staring at the wall.
So it was true. Something was choking Nick right above his vocal chords. He looked away quickly.
‘Emily says hello. She’s going to visit you soon. A lot’s happened in the last few weeks.’
Jamie’s rigid stare was still fixed on the wall. Nick thought he saw a muscle twitch in his face. Perhaps it had been his imagination. ‘Jamie. I’m incredibly sorry that I was such a shit to you that day. I’ve wished thousands of times that I’d behaved differently. But the game is over; perhaps that will please you. Not just for me – it’s completely over.’
Was Jamie smiling? No.
‘If you can hear me, if you can understand even one word of what I’m saying, then do something. Please! Blink, or wiggle your toes – anything.’
Was he responding? Was he actually responding? Nick bit his lip as Jamie pushed his right hand infinitely slowly over the bedclothes, raised it and stretched his fingers up.
‘Well done, Jamie, that’s great,’ Nick stammered. ‘You’ll get better, I know you will.’
Jamie’s hand hung in the air. His fingers twitched. Then he bent them over, one by one, except the middle finger. Turned his head, looked at Nick, and grinned.
‘Cox, you silly bugger, you scared me half to death!’ Nick yelled, and had to restrain himself not to punch Jamie in the ribs, or at least fling his arms round his neck. ‘You’re better, huh? Boy, am I glad. I thought you were . . . gone.’
‘Me, better? Are you daft? I’ve got a headache like nothing on earth, and you have no idea how brilliant a broken hip feels.’ Jamie laughed, but at the same time screwed his eyes up in pain. ‘But I’m getting amazing drugs for it. It was almost worth it just for that.’
‘Idiot. I saw you lying on the road and thought you were dead. I’ll never get the picture out of my head.’
Jamie was grinning shamelessly again. ‘Send me a print of it.’
Jamie still remembered everything, apart from the two days before the accident. His anger over the game was unabated.
‘It’s not running any more,’ Nick said. ‘None of the gamers can log in. After the battle was lost, it immediately turned dark on everyone. It’s over. Full stop. End of story. A few people are s
till totally messed up because of it.’
‘How can that be? Did someone turn off the server?’
‘No.’ Nick had to remind himself that Jamie had no idea what Erebos had been and all the things it had been capable of. ‘It was a remarkable game. It could read, and it could understand what it read. My theory is that it was searching the internet the whole time the battle was on and waiting for the announcement that – how can I put it – its enemy was dead. The announcement didn’t come. There was a different one instead. At which point it turned itself off.’
Jamie looked impressed. ‘Far out!’
‘Yes.’
Jamie’s pale face looked thoughtful. Was it too early to tell him the whole truth? No, Nick thought. The sooner it’s behind us the better.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Your accident. Someone disconnected your brakes, that’s why you tore through the intersection like a bat out of hell.’ He took a breath. ‘I know who did it. If you want, I’ll tell you.’
Disbelief was written all over Jamie’s face. He opened his mouth, closed it again and turned his face to the wall.
‘I can’t remember the accident. Or the days before it. I’d like to know what happened.’ He felt for the scar on his head. ‘Did the game have anything to do with it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. I’ll think about it. Perhaps I’ll want to know later.’ He gave a crooked grin. ‘But I would like to know whether it’s likely that I’ll bump into that person in the schoolyard and give them half my sandwich out of the goodness of my heart?’
Nick shook his head. ‘No.’
Brynne had changed schools. She hadn’t gone to the police as far as Nick knew.
‘How long do you have to stay here?’ he asked.
‘It could be a while. After that I have to go into rehab with all the old ladies who’ve broken their hips. Can’t wait to see how they like my hairdo.’
Jamie’s brain, joke-centre included, was unscathed. Nick felt like bursting into song.
‘When you’re back on your feet, I must introduce you to someone. You’ll get along well.’
‘A girl?’
‘Not exactly. But someone with a similar sense of humour who drinks even more tea than you.’
There was a meeting scheduled in two days’ time. Emily had organised it because she thought it would be good to bring some resolution to things. ‘It’s hard for so many people,’ she said. ‘The game ended so abruptly that it left a gaping hole.’
Nick, who still remembered the gaping hole in his own life, agreed. Besides, there was an entirely practical consideration: a plan that he could only carry out jointly with the other ex-gamers. With Mr Watson’s help they’d booked the meeting room in a youth centre, and put up notices at all the schools where they knew, or at least suspected, that there were gamers.
But he still hadn’t expected such a crowd. When he walked into the meeting room, all the chairs had long since been taken, and lots of people were sitting on the floor. He tried to count how many were present, but gave up before he got even halfway. At any rate it was more than one hundred and fifty. Despite the cold November evening, they were going to have to open the windows soon if they wanted to get enough air.
Nick stood up the front and waited till most of the conversations had subsided.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Nick Dunmore. Lots of you know me from school. I played Erebos, like you, and I loved it, honest. But it’s a good thing that the game is over – you’ll have to take my word on that for now. Before I explain to you what was actually behind it, I think I should introduce myself properly. The rules don’t apply any more. So, in the game I was Sarius, a dark elf, and I was thrown out as an Eight.’
A few people laughed. ‘Sarius, hey, really? You were Sarius?’
Straightaway there were people wanting to kick off with their own stories, experiences and anecdotes – Nick had difficulty applying the brakes.
‘Hang on! First we need to discuss something important. Listen: You’ve probably all read about what happened. Ortolan wasn’t a monster, he was an actual person. Not a nice person, but still a person. He’s going to be released from hospital in a few days, and he’ll probably carry on exactly as before.’ They were listening to him – excellent. ‘The sole aim of Erebos was to get back at Mr Ortolan for one of his dirty tricks. It didn’t work. On the one hand that’s a good thing; but on the other hand he shouldn’t be allowed to get off scot-free.’
A few people nodded; most just looked puzzled.
‘So here’s what needs to happen,’ Nick continued. ‘I know you’ve all carried out “real” orders. I’d like to collate them. Especially those that didn’t have anything to do with people at your school. Think of the ones where you wondered why you were doing them and who was going to benefit or suffer, and write them down. If you took pictures, scans or copies that you’ve still got, give them to me.’
They all looked at him suspiciously.
‘No-one is going to punish you, promise. But we’re going to try to use them against Ortolan if it turns out that he’s got skeletons in his cupboard. Which I’m pretty sure he has. We’ll meet again here in a week’s time, okay? And now I’d like to know who you all were.’
It was as if the floodgates had opened. Nick tried to insist on people speaking in turn, but soon everyone was talking at once. Everybody wanted to tell their own story and find out who was behind the warriors they’d had dealings with during the game. Nick gave up trying to play the moderator, and joined in.
Little groups quickly formed, but some people were left standing alone, like Rashid. Unlike the members of the Inner Circle he hadn’t been caught, but Nick could see how uneasy he was. He was still afraid that someone would dob him in.
Nick approached him and smiled. ‘I’ve been wondering for ages who you were. Blackspell?’
Rashid gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘I still think it’s weird when we talk about our player characters. It doesn’t feel right.’
‘Oh stop it. Come on, tell me. Blackspell?’
A tiny smile stole across Rashid’s lips. ‘Nope! I was Nurax.’
‘The werewolf! I wouldn’t have guessed that. How was it playing as a werewolf? Cool?’
They chatted about the advantages of the different species, about the adventures they’d shared and the ones they’d had by themselves. Others joined them, talked about their player characters and experiences – the meeting room buzzed like a beehive.
Nick was working his way through the crowd, looking for the players that he’d met most often. He wanted to know who Sapujapu and Xohoo were, and Galaris, whose name had been written on the wooden box. At some stage Aisha tapped him on the shoulder from behind.
‘Hi, Sarius. You know you totally surprised me ? I thought you were LordNick. That’s what most people thought.’
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I’d like to meet him and ask him what he was thinking. Let me know if you find him, huh?’
She gave him an offended look. ‘And you’re not interested in who I was?’
I’d be more interested in finding out whether you’re going to clear up that harassment business. ‘Yes, of course I am,’ he said. ‘Do we know each other?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, and smiled. ‘But we didn’t like each other. You did me out of two levels in the Arena.’
‘Feniel?’
‘Exactly.’
After two hours, Nick had produced an impressive number of equations, and this time all of them were correct. Jerome had been behind Blackspell, and the quiet boy, Greg, had been disguised as LaCor, another vampire. Xohoo had turned out to be Martin Garibaldi, whom Nick had seen pleading with a friend on the day after his elimination. Nick swallowed his disappointment. He’d hoped that Xohoo might become a mate in real life.
Later, he also found Sapujapu, who didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to a dwarf. He was a tall, lanky guy named Eliott, who was doing his last year at school and wanted to study English Lit after tha
t. They exchanged phone numbers, talked about films and music, and he discovered that Eliott was also a fan of Hell Froze Over.
‘I haven’t got my fan shirt any more, unfortunately,’ he sighed. ‘I sacrificed it for an Erebos level. No idea what for.’
Nick could hardly breathe, he was laughing so hard. Hence it took a while to enlighten Eliott.
‘Hey, good excuse to get together and do some axe-grinding,’ Eliott joked, and added that Nick bore an astonishing resemblance to LordNick.
‘I know,’ Nick said, fed up. ‘I’d like to know who borrowed my face.’
Someone behind him cleared his throat. ‘I think I may be able to help there.’
He turned around. Dan, Girl Guide number one.
‘Aha. And who was it?’
Dan looked at the ground, embarrassed. ‘Don’t spread it round, okay? I’m pretty sure it was Alex. He . . . admires you. Has done for the last couple of years. For a while he was trying to imitate you, didn’t you notice? No? Well, anyway, I did.’ Dan scratched his rear. ‘When a Nick Dunmore clone turned up right after I gave Alex the game, I thought of him at once.’
Who says it wasn’t actually you? ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Dan scratched himself harder. ‘Well, Alex is my best mate. And it upsets him, the way you always call him a Girl Guide. I thought that if I told you he was a fan of yours then you’d be nicer to him. He didn’t want to come himself. He was too embarrassed, which also supports my theory.’
Nick found Dan’s revelations oddly moving. He’d imagined all sorts of motives for LordNick’s existence, but admiration hadn’t been one of them.
‘And you?’ he asked Dan. ‘Who were you?’
‘Uh-oh,’ Dan grinned. ‘This isn’t exactly going to win me bonus points. I was Lelant, and I’m sorry, but I can’t give your wish crystal back to you.’
Lots of things were cleared up, but not all. Nick didn’t find out who Aurora had been, the cat woman who had died in the labyrinth in the fight with the scorpion. But a thin, pale girl with glasses in the Upper Sixth was Galaris. She hadn’t had any more idea about the contents of the box than Nick; she’d just taken it from one place to another. Tyrania, the barbarian with the extra-short skirt, had been the shy girl, Michelle. She’d supplied the pills that Nick was supposed to poison Mr Watson with. Michelle had nicked them out of her grandfather’s medicine cupboard. She didn’t get caught, because Grandpa always hoarded extra bottles at home. Just in case. Henry Scott, Nick’s own novice, had transformed himself into Bracco, the lizard man.