Chapter A Helping Hand

Coel Amberglass was exhausted. Over the past two dayshe had flown hundreds of miles as a crow and spent all of his sleeping hours infurious discussions with the other members of the Conclave. But even though thehotel room was dark and peaceful, a creeping panic was keeping him awake.

He released his senses and saw the golden twinkle ofnearby minds like static fireflies in his imagination. Seven other people and amultitude of small mammals and birds were in the hotel, most of them burningwith the steady rhythm of sleep. Scurrying beneath these larger minds was thebusy, background glow of insects.

He looked still further, stretching his mind out intothe cold night. Nocturnal hunters and their prey flew and skittered aroundeverywhere, illuminating the night with their activity. An occasional blurredmind zigzagged its way home along the dim streets, but still there was no signof what had awoken him.

Unbidden, Joshua Bennett’s face flickered into focusand a dreadful feeling began to rise in him. He concentrated for a moment andsent a powerful pulse through the village, like a sonar signal. He inspectedthe reflected echoes and knew that his fear had been accurate. Josh was in somesort of danger.

It took him a little while to focus in on Josh’s mind,and when he did he almost lost the connection. The boy’s mind was seethingwildly, as if he was the victim of brutal torture. It was like a boiling sunabout to go nova.

Coel jerked his body upright and leapt out of bed,belying his age and recent tiredness. He grabbed his staff and hurtled out ofthe room, bounding down the stairs and burst out of the front door of the tinyhotel. The night air chilled his skin, which had turned clammy after his mentalexplorations. He controlled his shiver as he fixed his bearings and hurried offinto the night.

He was concentrating too hard on what could be thematter with Josh to notice two burly figures emerge from an alleyway as hepassed by. They noticed him however, and with synchronised leers they set offafter the older man.

Coel jumped when he felt the heavy hand thump onto hisshoulder.

“Oi! Where do you think you’re going?”

Coel tried to quicken his pace and reached behind himwith his thoughts. He expected to brush his assailant off with a simplesuggestion of power, but there was something very wrong. The man’s mind waslike a swamp. There was nothing but rottenness and Coel could not find anythingto exert any leverage on. It was like trying to climb a wall made of rancidfish.

The hand on his shoulder jerked him to a halt.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Are you deaf as well asstupid?”

Coel felt a cold sense of helplessness, which wasquickly turning into fear. He had always been able to rely on his powers. Hecould not remember a time when he had not been in control.

He turned to face the two men.

He could feel them towering over him. They smelt likethey’d been drinking, but that did not explain the fetid wrongness of theirminds.

“I’m just going for a walk. That’s alright isn’t it.”Coel stressed his words carefully trying to find another way into their minds.

One of the men frowned, but the other laughed. “No.That’s not all right. This is our street. You’ve got to pay a tax. Hasn’t heCraig?”

The other man nodded unsurely and Coel saw his chance.Whatever disease was controlling these men had not taken full hold of the otherman. Coel unleashed his full power and burrowed as deeply as he could into theother man’s mind.

It was disgusting. The normally beautiful swirls andeddies of golden light that made up a human mind were covered with an ichoroussludge that made the patterns heavy and corrupt. Coel felt nauseous and weak,but he found the triggers he needed and, as quickly as he could, he pulled themand burst back out of the mind.

He sucked cold air into his lungs as he realised thathe had been holding his breath.

Craig’s face was contorted, as if he was battling tosuppress a sneeze. “Leave the old man alone. He’s only out for a walk.” Heblurted after a few seconds.

“What?” The other man said through clenched teeth.

“I said, leave him alone, Billy.” Coel’s power hadmastered him now and Craig was getting braver. His voice was steady and calm.

Billy let his hand drop from Coel’s shoulder andturned with menacing slowness to his companion. “What?”

“You heard. Let’s go home.”

He shook his head. “You must think I’m crazy.”

“Not really, just…” But he didn’t finish. Billylaunched himself at his friend with fists flailing and teeth bared. The two bigmen tumbled over and began grappling each other on the floor.

Coel didn’t hesitate. He scurried away from the fight,wondering if this was the infection N’rinde had told the Conclave about. Heshuddered at the thought. If humans were as easily affected as insects, thenthere was even less time than they thought.

They crouched shivering in the darkness for a fewminutes, until five stubby candles winked into existence before them. Althoughthey were only small, their flickering light amply illuminated a cramped, dankcellar containing mouldering crates stacked high against the walls. Thespectral head floated above the candles defined by the thin plumes of wispywhite smoke.

“Who are you?” Josh’s teeth were chattering. He didn’tknow if it was from the unnatural cold that seemed to exude from the floor ofthe cellar, or simple fear.

“I’m one of the original programmers of this Vrealm,but the Doge calls us Traitors. We’ve been imprisoned inside those dreadfulstatues seemingly forever. My name is Rose.” Her voice was softly tinged withan American accent.

“I’m Josh. And this is Toby.”

“Pleased to meet you. I would shake hands, but…” Rosegrimaced.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. At least I’m free for the time being.That room was the most reviled place in this Vrealm. Although it is not thesource of the evil that’s here. When you burned my statue you released me fromcenturies of imprisonment. What year is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“In the real world, what is the date?”

Josh told her and she looked surprised. “Really? I’veonly been here for a year.”

“Why are you called the Traitors?” Toby blurted thequestion out.

“The Doge and his minions call us that because we wereplaying to beat him. This is meant to be a game.”

“A game?”

“Yeah, when we first wrote it. A game of Machiavellianintrigue set against the backdrop of a Renaissance city. We thought we were soclever.”

“You’re a real person?”

Rose laughed softly. “That’s a bit impertinent, don’tyou think Toby? Do you always ask people you meet if they are real?”

“No, but…Well things are strange here. I guess I’mjust not used to it.” Toby grimaced sheepishly. ”Can you get out of thisnightmare? Are you still playing a game?”

“No.” Rose’s good humour dissolved. “Not anymore.”

Realisation dawned on Josh. “You got trapped didn’tyou. I mean, not in the statue. Trapped online like us.”

Rose nodded. “Yes, only a year ago if your date isaccurate. Without the beating of a living heart to tick off the days, timebecomes increasingly abstract. But tell me, how did you get here? You didn’thack your way in did you? I thought I’d made that impossible.”

“We did, sort of. We found a part of the Internet Ididn’t know existed.” Toby seemed much more relaxed than Josh felt. “It was asort of network between the websites, almost as if the connections had evolvedinto another Internet.”

“You’re very smart, Toby. We called it the Plexus whenwe first stumbled across it. It seems to be a network that runs parallel to theusual dreary websites that the whole world knows about, but it isn’t hosted oncomputers, well not any computers that I’ve seen before.”

“You mean the Delphixians?”

Rose shook her head. “Delphixians?”

So they told Rose what ZX82 had told them, and aboutfreeing him from the factory in the snow. She listened intently, noddingeagerly at every new piece of information.

“Fascinating.” She said when he had finished. “Yes.That makes sense. This world is hosted purely on these living machines and thatwould explain why we were able to create such a realistic simulation.”

A scraping noise from the hall above them stopped theirconversation. They sat stock still, straining to hear another sound, but nonecame.

“It will take them a while to find us down here.” Rosesaid soothingly. “They’ll be trying to hide from each other for a bit, beforethe Doge whips them back into order.”

“What are they? The things in the cloaks? Surelythey’re not people.”

“I used to think they were the lucky ones. They werejust artificial intelligence routines that took over when a player went offline, but this place has given them a gruesome parody of life that the Doge hasmanaged to warp to his own ends. As I’ve said, this world was created as agame, but we never released it to the public and one by one the players droppedout. It wasn’t a very good game really, I suppose, but it was devilishly cleverand terribly addictive.”

“You’re Rose Cormack!” Toby said rather too loudly.

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“You wrote ‘Shiver’ and then disappeared. Everyonethinks you’re working on the biggest game ever.” Toby looked as though he wasgoing to fall to his knees and start worshipping the translucent head. “Wow!Rose Cormack.”

“I wrote a lot of this world as well. I thought it wasmy best work at the time.”

“If you created it, why are you stuck here? Why don’tyou just go back?”

Rose’s laugh was mirthless. “If only it was so simple.Just click my heels together and go back to Kansas. If only. I don’t know if mybody is still alive. I doubt it somehow. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to goback.”

“You’re the greatest programmer who’s ever lived. Youredefined virtual reality games. How can you be trapped?” Toby was besidehimself with adoration.

“I’m not the greatest.” Rose smiled and then shrugged.“Well maybe I am, but I still can’t get out. There is no Kung Foo strong enoughto combat the Plexus, because it is so…well organic I suppose. You don’trealise you’re trapped until you’re in too deep, but I guess I don’t have totell you.”

“Someone must have found your body. Taken your VRglasses off; disconnected you.”

“I would imagine so, but this world is more than that.The computer you used to get here is just a vehicle. It can transport you tothese worlds, but your mind is what makes you believe that you are here. Bydefinition this world will feel more real than the physical world you haveleft. I bet you don’t have anything connected to your computer to make you feelcold or wet, do you?”

Toby shook his head.

“But sitting on that damp crate makes you feel both ofthem, doesn’t it?”

They both nodded slowly. “So? What does that mean?”

“Well your mind is telling you that your butts are wetand cold. Really wet and cold. You don’t have a physical body to get in betweenthe feeling and your mind.”

Toby and Josh looked at each other blankly. “What doesthat mean? Are we trapped?” Josh ventured, uncertainly.

Rose looked sadly at them. “I’m not sure. I’ve triedeverything I can think of to escape, and before I was trapped in the statue Icouldn’t find a way out. I’m sorry, I hope it’s different for you two.” Anotherscraping noise stopped their conversation again. This time it was louder andeven Rose looked uncertain. “There are masks and cloaks in these crates. Putthem on.”

Josh and Toby opened a couple of the crates to findtattered, wet robes and old scratched masks. They put them on and practisedmoving. Neither of them could quite master the peculiar rigidity of the puppetfolk’s movements, but they felt a little safer in their disguises.

“So who is the Doge?” Josh asked as he lumbered acrossthe damp floor again.

“I just don’t know that answer to that one Josh. Hewasn’t one of the original players. I think he turned up just as the lastplayers were leaving and he began to make it interesting again. We thought hewas just another player, but he seemed to have some strange power over the waythe game progressed. Every strategy he used bore fruit, every tactic wasperfect, and he was always playing the game. He was always online. We tried tofind out more about him, but he would evade even the most innocent of ourquestions and then one day he proclaimed himself the ruler of Vienopolis. TheDoge. He had effectively won, and there were so few real players here that wecouldn’t oppose his triumph. Checkmate.

“And what a checkmate it was. We all stuck about for awhile wondering what the game would do with an overall winner.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, so we thought we’d stop playing and maybestart another game, and that’s when we found we couldn’t get back. We weretrapped. And then the killings started.”

“Killings?”

“It started out simply as cruelty. The Doge wouldexpose a puppet in front of its peers and order them to destroy it. They allprided themselves on their artificial humanity and they had all come to hatewhat they really were. This hatred was fuelled by the Doge until eventually hemade it illegal to be a puppet. So they live in fear of exposure, even thoughthey all know what they all are.”

“Why don’t they do something about it?”

“Because they’re all so scared of each other. Have youseen what they do to each other when one of their masks slip off? It’shorrible.”

“Yeah, we’ve seen it. They were like animals.”

“It’s not their fault though.” Rose said sadly.“They’re programmed to be the way they are. They’ve broken free of some oftheir programming, but not all of it. I’m responsible for the way they are.”There was a tremble in her voice now and she squeezed her eyes shut for asecond. “It was just meant to be a game.”

“They’re not real, though. I mean they’re not people.”

“Their intelligence is as real as yours or mine, Josh.And they can feel emotional pain as acutely as we can.”

Just then, the rattle of lots of somethings on thesteps made them jump up and a group of the puppet people crowded through theentrance. The candles had disappeared and the only light came from dimly glowinglanterns that some of the marionettes carried. They stopped for a second whenthey saw Josh and Toby but then started rummaging around the room and throwingover crates. They were all muttering and it was hard to make out anything thatwas being said, but the gist was clear.

“We must find them. He will be angry.”

Josh and Toby had been too slow to hide, but it seemedthat their disguises were working. They started casting about the room justlike the other figures, until they all started to make their way back out andup the steps. Josh and Toby found themselves bustled along with them. They felthard wooden limbs digging into their sides and thought they would be discoveredat any moment. They could barely find the courage to breathe.

Rose had vanished in the confusion when the puppetpeople had burst into the underground chamber and there was no sign of her. Hehoped she was watching them. There was something comforting about the thoughtthat the creator of the world was looking out for him, even if she wasintangible.

Something was pulling at his sleeve and the bile ofsheer terror coursed through Josh’s stomach before he realised it was Toby. Hetried to pull his arm away without attracting too much attention, but Toby wasinsistent and Josh suddenly saw why.

The Doge had appeared behind them.

His face held a sneering grin that chilled Josh’sheart. He thought the Doge’s eyes were piercing through his tattered cloak andfaded mask. The urge to run away was almost uncontrollable, but Toby’s grip hadtightened on his forearm and that slight distraction gave him enough time torealise that the Doge wasn’t even looking at them at all.

He strode past them pushing the puppet people out ofthe way.

“Have you pathetic rats found anything yet? The firstone of you who does can keep their eyes.” Close up, Josh could see the Doge’sface was burned on one side from his ear to his mouth and blood had congealedunder his nose.

An excited murmur rippled through the crowd and Joshfound himself jolted forward directly into the back of the Doge. Josh backedaway and bowed his head, not daring to look up. He felt the Doge turn slowly.He jerked himself backwards, trying to keep his face covered with the shadow ofthe cowl of his cloak.

“Don’t touch me, worm!”

Josh bobbed his head, desperately trying to conveyapologies and supplication with that simple gesture, but it wasn’t enough. TheDoge lashed out with his fist, which caught him on his chest sending himsprawling to the hard ground. There was much more power in the blow than anyphysical effort could account for.

Toby was at his side in an instant and hauled him tohis feet, but Josh was stunned by the blow and couldn’t seem to get his feetworking quickly enough.

“Come on Josh.” Toby hissed. “He knows who you are.”

The Doge was just standing over them, staring at hishand. There was an instant of hurricane-eye stillness before anyone moved.

“Get them!” He screamed.

The marionettes didn’t know what to do. They startedto run around madly, desperately looking for someone to capture, but theydidn’t know whom they were meant to be catching.

“It’s them! They look like you!” The Doge shoutedfuriously through grinding teeth. This confused them even more and they startedclutching at each other in their fear and it wasn’t until Josh and Toby hadcleared the main group that it became obvious that they were the different onesand the chase began again.

They were running at full speed. They dodged betweencolumns with the speed of terrified foxes chased by ravening hounds. Theydidn’t know where to run to, they were just running away.

Behind them the confusion had been evaporated by thefear instilled by the Doge and the puppet people were flooding through theenormous chamber like a swarm of insects, but they could not match the speed oftheir prey.

Slowly, but surely, Josh and Toby put distance betweenthemselves and the chasing horde. Their smoke laden lungs burned with theeffort and their legs and arms were beginning to feel heavy, but nothing wouldstop them running.

A flicker of reddish light appeared ahead of them andit blazed brighter and more substantial as they ran. This was an opening to theoutside, an edge to the vast chamber. They could see a bloated red sunsquatting in a cloud-streaked sky, dispensing the crimson light of evening overa world of tall spires and cobbled streets.

They ran on past the final columns of the chamber anddown some steps that led to the streets. The cobbles were uneven and difficultto run on, but without a backwards glance they raced away. A broad avenue ranperfectly straight into the distance and they raced along it until they reachedthe first alleyway, which they dodged into hoping the puppet people were stillin the building and hadn’t seen them hide.

They collapsed against each other, huffing and puffinglike steam engines.

“Are we safe?” Josh panted, knowing there was no realanswer.

“I don’t think so. We need to find a place to hide. Wecan’t stay here.”

Josh nodded, unable to utter a single word.

They heaved themselves up and started jogging alongthe alleyway, listening intently for any sound of pursuit, but none came andthey soon found an open door.

The room beyond was dark and to Josh’s eyes it lookedsafe. He wanted to curl up behind some of the antique furniture and just sleepthere until he woke up from this nightmare, but he knew it was not a dream, notin the normal sense anyway.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Josh. But I’m starting to feel hungry.Are you?”

Josh hadn’t thought about it before, but now that Tobyhad mentioned it he realised that he was indeed starving. “Yeah. I could eat ahorse. How does that work? How long do you think we’ve been inside?”

“I don’t know. Rose said time didn’t work the same wayhere. We could have been in hours or minutes or days. Who knows?”

“We can’t starve, can we?”

Toby shrugged. “Our bodies in the real world can,maybe they’re telling us we’re hungry, but maybe we just think we should behungry because we think we’ve been here for so long. One thing I do knowthough, is that we need to get out of this Vrealm.”

“Too right.”

They climbed a set of stairs and emerged onto a long,curved passageway that had doors on one side. There were a few dim lanterns onthe opposite wall and the carpet was rich and deep. The sound of manythings laughing came from the other sideof those doors, and Toby jumped.

“There’s more in there. Let’s find somewhere else.”

“No. That’ll be the best place to hide.”

Toby stared at Josh as if he had turned into apineapple. “Are you crazy? Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire.Let’s just go.”

“No. Think about it, Toby. We fooled all those thingsback there. We were just unlucky, and if we’re with them we can find out moreabout them. Maybe even where to get out of this world. It’s the Doge that weneed to be scared of. Not these puppets.”

“Yeah, but…” Toby began to protest, but Josh hadalready started to open one of the doors.

The door opened onto the gallery stalls of a theatre.Thousands of the cloaked figures were sitting watching the grotesque spectaclethat was being performed for them.

Two real human beings were dancing jerkily on stage.On closer inspection it became apparent they were not dancing voluntarily.Ropes had been lashed around their ankles and wrists and these disappeared intothe darkness above the stage. The humans jerked around in a manner that made itperfectly clear that these ropes controlled them and every time they moved in aparticularly puppet-like way, the audience roared with laughter.

Toby had joined Josh in the entrance and he gasped.One of the figures sitting near the door turned to them, but after a cursoryexamination it looked back to the stage without raising the alarm. Emboldenedby this, Josh made his way down the steps to two empty seats and settled intoone of them. He tried to look at the stage, but he couldn’t watch the hideousdance so he just sat back with his eyes closed and unseen behind his mask. Hefelt Toby sit down next to him.

“Who are they?” Toby whispered.

Josh didn’t have time to tell Toby he didn’t know,because just then the dancers stopped. They both fell over, and one of themstared out pleadingly into the theatre. Josh could see the fear and pain in hisface. Then their puppet ropes went taut again and they were hoisted up off thestage into the flies and the crowd fell silent.

The Doge had walked onto the stage from the wings.

“Good people of Vienopolis. I stand before you in needof your help. There are two amongst you who must be rooted out and given overto me. Two more Traitors who threaten the very fabric of our Utopian society.

“They have already freed some of the most dangerousvillains ever to have existed in this peaceful place, and I need to catch thembefore they can wreak any more chaos.

“If you suspect that any among you are not who theyseem, then bring them to the Iron Tower.”

Josh felt a hard, wooden hand slap down on hisshoulder. “Who are you?” A dead voice said softly. “Are you the impostors?”

The Doge was walking off stage now and the wholetheatre was on its feet applauding his short speech. Josh pushed the hand offhis shoulder, stood up and started to clap along with everyone else.

He could smell peaches.

The theatre started to swim about him and darknessgathered around the edges of his sight. He could vaguely hear Toby’s voicewhispering urgently beside him, beseeching him not to leave him alone. He feltlike he was plunging into a deep well, until suddenly he lost consciousnesscompletely.