Gamerunner Read online

  Contents

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 2

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part 3

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part 4

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  About the author

  Also by B. R. Collins

  The Traitor Game

  One

  Part 1

  Nothing is impossible

  Chapter 1

  He knows he’ll get killed here, and he does.

  He swings round the corner, a micro-em from the edge of the wall, trying desperately for the extra millisecond that might make all the difference. In front of him there’s only the dark and a pale tunnel of light that lurches as he runs. Somewhere there has to be a door, if he can just get to it. But he’s only human. His lungs are full of fire, his throat burns with acid, his heart is going so quickly it’s a roar in his ears. The floor slips backwards under his feet. Faster, faster, faster . . .

  And behind him the shadows have woken, spun themselves into shape and gathered speed, thirsty with keen, deep malice against the little people who carry lights and speak aloud, breaking the old rules. The dark has turned against him like a tide: mindless, malevolent. It’s his own fault, he knows that, and it slows him down. If only he hadn’t — the light, the stupid light . . . but it’s too late now. The feeble cone of silver bounces in front of him, not showing anything but long blank walls and floor. He feels liquid spatter on his hands and doesn’t know whether it’s his own sweat or spit spluttering out of him. He’d call out, but there’s no help here.

  There’s a glint. A fractional corner of something, sliding in and out of the torchlight like a metal tongue. He can’t stop, can’t run straight any more, can’t think, but somehow there’s just enough energy left in his body to throw him forward. A door, there has to be a door . . . He grabs for his belt, undoing it as he runs, feeling the weight drop away, but it’s too little, too late. Just ten more seconds, five, two . . .

  Suddenly the back of his neck is burning, an electrical itch pressing on his atlas vertebra like a thumb. The in-range signal: the shadows are close now, close enough to get him. It’s too late — or almost, almost too late. He could turn and fight, but he’d lose, and in any case now — he chokes with bitter laughter and fury — now he’s dropped his weapon-belt . . .

  He sees the blade just in time. It flicks out at him, waist-height, smooth and automatic as an insult, and he’s lucky — no, he’s good — and his body takes over and smashes him to the ground, his chin hitting the floor with an impact that hurts more than he’s expecting. He hears the air sing above his head and the whine and click as the trap resets. But there’s a flash in the corner of his vision — one, two, three flashes. The impact’s damaged something, and for a split second he thinks it’s his eyes. What has he done? His torch, oh no, his torch . . . The whole world pauses. Then the torch goes out.

  He knows it’s all over, then. He lets his forehead rest on the clammy floor, lets his lungs fill with a long, slow breath of defeat. Because without the light . . . how could he run this quest in the dark? Whine, click, goes the blade-trap again. And he only has a second left, maybe two, before the shadows swallow him. Maybe in the dark they’ll take longer to find him — but it’s seconds, not minutes. He knows that. So really there’s no point jumping to his feet, especially with the trap zinging above his head, making it even harder . . .

  But he’s desperate. So he struggles to his hands and knees, his triceps aching, the pressure on the back of his neck almost painful now. Somewhere there’s a door. There’s always a door. The first rule: nothing is impossible.

  Zing. Zing. Zing . . .

  One second more, while he closes his eyes against the dark, learning the rhythm of the trap. And then — gods, if he could only see himself . . . because even now, even hopeless and gasping for breath, he can’t help admiring the way he leaps up — sharp as a flame — and dives forward to the floor, dropping and rolling. He knows he’s judged it perfectly because he’s still alive. Brilliant. It’s such a shame that he’s going to die anyway.

  He runs.

  There’s something ahead. He blinks frantically, forcing the sweat out of his eyes. A doorway outlined in gold; somewhere there’s sunlight, gods, sunlight, which means he’s nearly out, he’s nearly done it —

  Zing. He drops, rolls, automatic now, ignoring the fire in the muscles of his back. Zing. And again. Zing. And again —

  Only this time he sees it, in the faint daylight that clings to the metal like grease. A long scythe, whipping round, rhythmic, slow, at the level of his ankles. Easy to avoid, if only he wasn’t already throwing himself forward; easy enough to avoid, if he hadn’t smashed his torch, if he’d only seen it in time . . .

  It’s too late to stop himself. He hits the ground. Everything slows down, so he has time to watch the scythe swinging round on its arc, deliberate, leisurely, leaving a silver trail in the air. The corners of the world go red.

  His eyes are stinging from the sweat. He doesn’t even bother to watch the last micro-ems of the scythe. He lets his head drop back and looks up at the ceiling, waiting to die. The adrenalin’s fading, now. He can’t even be bothered to swear.

  Blackness. Total blackness, like blindness. And the temperature drops so sharply it hurts. The sweat on his skin burns with cold. He holds his breath and counts, feeling a drop slide down his ribcage like a fingertip. Ten seconds, twenty . . .

  And then light so harsh he has to cover his eyes. He screws his face up, filtering the glare through the gaps between his fingers. This is the bit he hates. The world in front of him wavers as if he’s underwater. Slowly, stickily, he peels his hands away from his face. He’s back where he started, looking at the entrance to the quest. Nice of them, he thinks, to put the soul-tree just outside. That way I can start all over again, straight away . . . Ha. The doors are massive, forbidding, even now, seen through the pale haze that ripples across them. He has to tilt his head back to see the arch at the top. But he doesn’t care how impressive they are, any more. His corpse is there, slumped on the steps, and he sits down next to it, turning his head to stare through the ghost-shimmer, narrowing his eyes, stupidly, as if that could help him see.

  Oh, brilliant, he thinks. Three hours, and now he’s dead and it’s all wasted. And it was a solo, so no loyalty, no owed favours — nothing. Not even a debt or a vendetta. He hasn’t gained anything but a reason to be grateful that he’s got an infinite account. If he hadn’t . . . but he does. Daed has his uses, after all.

  He squints through the mist at his corpse. It looks like him, except for the hair and the eyes and the muscles. He wishes, suddenly, that he could just reach out and pat its shoulder — comfortingly, paternally — but of course he can’t. If he touches his corpse, he’ll resurrect, and he doesn’t feel up to that right now. He stands up, glides up the steps and pushes at the door, because this might be the day he’ll find a bug — maybe it’d let him run the quest again as a ghost . . . Gods know he deserves one, statistically, after this much time in the Maze, but all he gets is a line of text at eye-level: You are a ghost. To open this door, resurrect and try again. He pushes agai
n, until his shoulders burn with the effort. More text hangs in the air: To resurrect, touch your corpse.

  He skims down one step, then two, towards his sprawled body, then pauses. He could go back into the quest, but there’s no way he’ll get further than he just did, not the way he’s feeling now. His legs are shaking all over the place; it’s just as well he’s a ghost, or he wouldn’t make it down the steps. No; enough’s enough.

  He ought to cool down, but he can’t face it. Normally he’d spend a dutiful ten minutes flying, skimming over water, whatever — it’s the only thing being a ghost is good for, after all — but he’s too sore, still aching and fed up. Another five seconds in that corridor, and he might have made it . . . He says, ‘Log off, please.’ The screen in front of him goes to flat mode, and he blinks, fighting the nausea as his eyes adjust. He’s been playing too long. The gateway music swells and loops, once, twice . . . He says, ‘Shut up,’ through the pounding drums, and grins mirthlessly at the gateway ikons when the tank goes quiet. He eases the gamecap off his head, then the undercap. He feels the wet silk catch on the stubble on his scalp, and makes a mental note that he needs to shave his head before his next session. He drapes the cap on the hook behind him and leans against the wall. The tank is filled with dim electric light, making his skin look green. He licks the salt off his lips, taking deep, conscious breaths. He hasn’t been this tired for ages. His wrists tremble as he undoes the straps on his waist and ankles. The screen says, Goodbye, and snaps to black.

  Chapter 2

  It was a relief to get out of the tank into the liquid grey of real daylight. He paused for a moment, taking in the wide-screen windows, the huge panorama of the real world, the way he did every time; and thought — the way he did every time — how depressing it looked, compared to the Maze. Even when you were dead, there was sunlight in the Maze . . . He pressed his hand on the outside panel of the tank to sign out and grabbed his towel and water-bottle from the locker. He caught sight of himself reflected in the window and winced. There was a real bruise on his jaw. He watched the water pour down over his face and imagined himself standing where his reflection was, in mid-air twenty storeys above the streets of Undone, unprotected in the acid rain . . .

  ‘Good session, Rick?’

  Paz’s voice made him jump about an em in the air. He wished she wouldn’t do that. He scrubbed frantically at his sweaty forehead and then turned, dropping his hand, trying to look cool. ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Looks like it.’ Paz looked him up and down, smiling.

  Another rush of sweat broke out on his forehead, like his body wringing him out from inside. He looked down and scuffed the toe of his runner on the floor. He could still feel her watching him, amused, faintly disgusted, noting the dark continents of wetness on his T-shirt, the way it clung to his breastbone and under his arms. He knew exactly what she was seeing: a sinewy, sweaty kid. What did she care if he could run the Maze better than anyone else in the complex? He was Daed’s son. That was all that mattered.

  ‘Any bugs? Glitches? Anything we should know about?’

  Ah, he thought. Research. That’s why she’s talking to me. He forced himself to meet her eyes. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, tell your — tell Daed, if you find anything.’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Good.’ Another little smile, like a reward. Then she walked away, and finally he had the space to look at her without her looking back. He hated the way he had to look, but he couldn’t help it. He stared at her back, taking in her shape, her histro clothes, the long seams of her stockings, her high heels. She was so . . . but beautiful wasn’t the right word. He didn’t like her, he just . . . She wasn’t like Perdita, say — the kind of person you could talk to, who you enjoyed talking to. Sometimes he tried to imagine Paz with Perdita’s personality, but it didn’t work. Perdita couldn’t be anything but ugly, and Paz couldn’t be anything but . . . whatever the word was. Overwhelming. Irresistible. He took a mental screenshot and stored it away for later.

  He got the rest of his stuff out of his locker and closed the door. He tipped forward and gazed at the window, leaning on his bruised jaw, cupping his hand over the locker’s click-wheel so he didn’t reset it by mistake. A design fault . . . He stared past the petrol-lustre of the chemiglass and the swirling grey on the other side. When he blinked and focused, his reflection had been watching him for a long time; it looked faintly surprised that he’d finally noticed. Behind it the sky had started to flicker. Storms tonight. That would be good — he got bored in the long hours between 2100 and 0500, when he was locked out of the Maze — but there was always the danger of a power surge. Once the tanks had gone down for twenty-three hours and he’d thought he’d go mad. The Maze itself couldn’t go down, of course, but that made it even worse, knowing other people were running it, taking all the gilt and the best loot . . . Crater — the company who owned the Maze — lost billions of new dollars, too, because the survey team couldn’t get in either. That put Paz in a bad mood. And when Paz was in a bad mood it spread through the whole complex like a demic. Even Perdita had been terse and uncommunicative — and Daed . . . Rick grimaced: he could still remember what Daed was like, that week.

  He shook his head suddenly, and the grimace turned into a grin. Gods, what kind of world did he live in? It was crazy. He couldn’t remember what it was like, before he and Daed came to Crater, he was too young; but he’d heard the stories, seen the occasional report on his computer. Out there, in the streets of Undone, where he’d been born, there were kids running wild, abandoned or orphaned so young they couldn’t speak Inglish; there were gangs who’d mug you for your hood, leaving you bare-headed in the corrosive rain; there were people starving. That could have been him. It would have been him, if Daed hadn’t . . . Not that he knew exactly what Daed had done, to end up with Crater. Except been a genius, he thought. That probably helped.

  He imagined them walking in — a younger Daed, with Rick just a hooded bundle in his arms — through a great golden gate, with Paz there to greet them with open arms, kissing Daed on both cheeks, calling for warm milk for little Rick. Ha ha. No, it would have been more like hours of automated security clearance, Daed sitting calmly on the floor, ignoring Rick’s screams, and Paz nowhere to be found — Paz in an office somewhere, making deals with the Inglish government. He could imagine her, driving a hard bargain: OK, we’ll keep our complex in Undone in spite of the pollution and security risks, and in return you run all your decisions past me . . .

  You had to hand it to Daed, though. Getting a job with the last corporation left in Ingland? However he did it, it couldn’t have been easy. And without him, Rick would have been one of those Undone kids. Here, now, he ran the Maze for fun. But for them . . . The Maze kept them alive. It was an opportunity to scavenge gilt that they could sell on the black — and there was always the chance that they’d find something really valuable. A special sword, a potion, something unique: and then they could sell it and make their fortune, get enough real money to start a new life . . . There were people who’d sell themselves for an hour in a tank. Even if it was illegal, even if it was dangerous, because their tanks were botched and shoddily built and might malfunction at any moment. Rick thought: And here I am, worrying about whether Daed’s in a decent temper.

  Paz had said to him once — back in the first few years of the Maze, when she was so pleased with Daed she was almost talkative — that there were two kinds of people in the world. The people who would sell their gilt for good new dollars: and the others, the proper Mazers, who would pay real money for a purse of gilt at the right time. They’re our kind of people. Our demographic, she’d said. You’re one of them. At the time he’d thought it was a compliment.

  A cat-o’-nine-tails of lightning arched out across the sky, and he shivered, abruptly aware of the sweat on his skin. It was always like this — after he got out of the Maze he was useless, slack and dreamy, good for nothing. If he could get a heads-up display on him
self right now, his power bar would be down to 1. He grabbed his stuff and made for the shower.

  ‘Rick. Rick.’

  For a moment he didn’t know where he was. He turned over, opening his eyes, sleepily registering the new aches in his shoulder blades. The pillow was wet and he was clutching the sheet in both his fists. He must have been dreaming. But it was still night; he could see the flickers of lightning through the half-darkened chemiglass. He caught himself sliding one hand down towards his belt before he realised this wasn’t the Maze and he wasn’t armed.

  ‘For gods’ sake, Rick. Wake up.’

  Daed. Of course: who else? There were other people who could override the lock on his door — Paz, for example, or anyone in Marketing, or even Perdita, although she wouldn’t come in without knocking — but he couldn’t imagine why they’d bother. Rick sat up, wincing. He really shouldn’t have left the tank without cooling down. He said, ‘Time, please,’ and watched the digits flash up on the top corner of the window. 0315.

  ‘Don’t turn the light on.’

  ‘What are you doing in my rooms at — never mind.’ He drew his knees up to his chest, covered himself with the sheet, and waited.

  There was a metallic scratching sound and Daed’s face was suddenly hovering a few ems away, gold-red and flickering. He was holding a flame between his fingers, raising it to his lips. Then there was only a little red glow and the bitter, archaic smell of a cigarette. Rick looked away. He liked seeing fire — he was like a kid, he still got excited — but there was something shameful about seeing Daed smoke. It was so Last World; like he was only doing it to make everyone feel uncomfortable. ‘Did you disable the fire alarm?’

  ‘Naturally.’ He turned and coughed the smoke to the side. Rick narrowed his eyes. Daed’s cough was as much a part of him as his mind: but tonight it sounded thicker, frothier, a full-fat kind of cough. Rick waited, but the cough died to silence and Daed didn’t say anything else.