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If this wasn’t the most difficult game in 2.5Dome, Dreychan absolutely did
not want to see whatever was. What Lubiti and Maaseiah
didn’t—couldn’t—understand was that this wasn’t anywhere near the first game
he had ever played. His homeworld of Ex-777 didn’t have work. People played
around all day. It was basically Castlebourne, but without the domes. They
were lazy and hedonistic, and while he preferred a more quiet life, it
wasn’t like he spent every waking moment curled up with a book. He had never
played a game quite like this, but he did have some experience. Even his
muscle memory had some idea what to do, because virtual reality was
ubiquitous on 777. So he survived. He ran through the level, avoiding every
obstacle, jumping over every gap. It wasn’t easy, and he was exhausted
throughout the whole thing, but he did make it. And once he finished that
first level, he went on to the next. And the next, and the next. He kept
trying to escape, either by taking small moments to try to repair his
emergency bracelet, or by just looking for a weak point in the walls. He
also screamed for help, but no one responded.
He never found respite, except for a few minutes between the levels. If he
managed to get significantly ahead of the moving wall, it wouldn’t have to
catch up to him. A new wall would simply slide in place, and start coming
for him instead. Sometimes, he had to figure out how to open a door, but it
was never too complex, and he was a pretty smart guy. They had
underestimated him, and that was their first mistake. He was at the final
level now, and about to finish the whole thing. The one thing left to do was
to defeat the final boss. How hard could it be?
Oh my God, so hard. It was this giant sort of skeleton creature that could
spin its whole torso around on an axis, which it used to try to slap
Dreychan away. There had been a sword in the eighth level, which he failed
to retrieve. He knew that would come back to bite him in the ass, but there
was no fixing it. A normal player could have let themselves die to try
again, but he didn’t have that luxury. Any death would mean the true death,
so he kept having to cut his losses, and press forward. That one mistake
could not be what ended him here. He could do this. He had no choice. It
wasn’t only because he obviously wanted to live in general, but seeing the
looks of horror on Lubiti and Maaseiah’s faces when he confronted them—he
couldn’t lose that opportunity.
He was on the ground, though, on his back. The skeleton creature towered
over him. It usually moved fast and violently, but it was slow now,
confident that it had Dreychan beat. It didn’t have that much in the way of
a recognizable face, but it might have even looked like it was smiling? It
reached back with its giant lanky arm, and prepared to smash Dreychan into
the floor when something stopped him. It was the hammer from level seven.
Dreychan had noticed it on the wall, but it had been receded into a pit, and
looked more like decoration. After he spotted the sword, he figured that the
hammer was just a distraction. Maybe not, though. Dreychan looked up to see
Teemo wielding it. Teemo?
Teemo screamed through gritted teeth as he reangled his weapon so he could
press against the bottom of the handle, and push the skeleton’s fist back.
The skeleton was confused, and surprised at finally encountering an enemy
who might actually defeat him. Teemo made one more push to knock the
skeleton off balance for a second, which was enough for him to regrip the
hammer, and smash the skeleton’s toes. The skeleton began to hop on one foot
as it massaged its metatarsals and phalanges. Teemo didn’t stop there. He
hopped over to the other foot, and swung to the side to smash into its
ankle. That was enough to tip the monster over to his back. Teemo took a
breath, and looked over at Dreychan, who was only now getting back up to his
feet. Teemo expertly threw the hammer upwards, letting it slide between his
fingers and thumb, catching it once his hand had reached the metal. He
pointed the bottom of the handle towards Dreychan. “Care to do the honors?”
Dreychan stepped forward. “How are you here? Why?”
“Do you want to ask questions, or do ya maybe wanna kill the monster first?”
Good point. Dreychan accepted the weapon, found his own grip on it, and
smashed the giant skull into a dozen pieces. After all this time, the doors
finally opened.
A few days later, Dreychan was all rested up, and ready for the next Council
meeting. According to Teemo, the plot to have Dreychan killed wasn’t limited
to Lubiti and Maaseiah. More people were involved, but unfortunately, he
didn’t know who, or how many. The only reason Teemo knew about it was
because Maaseiah underestimated him too. Teemo didn’t explain why he helped
Dreychan, but that obviously wasn’t the concern right now. They needed to
identify the other conspirators. They had one chance to curate that list, or
maybe not even that. If Dreychan had actually died in the game as he was
supposed to, they probably would have heard about it, so their surprise
might have faded by now. Or, they deliberately shielded themselves
from the potential of hearing such news in order to extend their plausible
deniability for as long as possible. He was about to find out. Teemo was
already in there, recording the Council in secret. Dreychan was waiting in
the ancillary hallway so no one would spot him.
They had been waiting for one straggler, but she was here now. Dreychan took
a deep breath, walked back over to the main hallway, and stepped into the
Council chambers. A hush fell over the room, which was weird, but he just
kept walking, not looking. Teemo was recording, he had to trust that. He
really wanted to see how Lubiti and Maaseiah were reacting, but he
would be able to watch the footage later. Teemo would run it through a
special program that was specifically designed to detect surprise, even if
someone was trying to hide it. Dreychan casually strode over to his seat,
and sat down as he always did. He looked up at Council Chair Rezurah because
she was about to call them to order.
“Uh, uh...um.” She was so flustered. Why was she flustered? Was she looking
at him? Holy crap, she was looking at him. She was part of this too? She
shook her head quickly, trying to loosen up and get back on track. “Thank
you all for coming. Um, I—I was able meet—to meet with Mr. Hrockas, I
mean Stewart—Steward! Mr. Hrockas Steward. Hrockas. And we came up with the
specifics of a plan. We’re gonna move our star 83 light years away, a little
bit closer to Earth. We will end up 83 light years from Earth. Now, I
know that might be confusing for some, but you have to remember that space
is three-dimensional—”
“Sometimes it’s two-point-five!” Teemo interrupted. He stood up, and started
walking towards the dais, holding his tablet down by his hip.
“Mister Teemo, you will wait your turn!” Rezurah demanded.
“I’m afraid I don’t have to wait for shit!” Teemo fired back. “You are all
under arrest!” He looked over at Dreychan. “Except you, Drey.”
“But all of them?” Dreychan questioned. “Every single one of them?”
“Every goddamn one,” Teemo confirmed as he looked back up at Rezurah.
“You do not have the authority to arrest anyone, and you don’t have any
proof whatsoever,” Rezurah argued. “You’re just a scribe.” She looked down
at Maaseiah. “I thought you said he was one of us.”
“He was,” Maaseiah replied before standing up himself, and looking Teemo in
the eye. “You helped us scrub the security footage.”
“No, I didn’t,” Teemo explained. “Because I am not Teemo.” He lifted
his tablet, and started tapping on it. His face began to flicker before
disappearing entirely, revealing his true face underneath. “My name is
Dominus Azad Petit of the Castlebourne Charter Contingency. Teemo has
already been placed in holding, you will all be joining him shortly.” Azad
made another tap on his device. A bunch of masked soldiers suddenly
appeared. They began to secure the perimeter, and place cuffs on people.
“No, not him,” Azad ordered the one who cuffs Dreychan. “He’s not guilty.”
“We’re not either!” Rezurah shouted. “We had an obligation to protect our
people, and the planet! We did it for you!”
Castlebourne Owner, Hrockas Steward appeared next to Azad. The man escorting
Rezurah met him halfway in the middle of the floor. “I brought you here. I
gave you a home when you had none. You didn’t even know what a home was. I
gave you everything you needed to live happily and safely.”
“And we’re grateful for that,” Rezurah insisted. “Nothing has to change.”
She scowled at Dreychan. “Except him. He’s a danger to us all. You have this
whole thing backwards.”
Hrockas shook his head. “My team investigated Mr. Glarieda for months, and
found no evidence of him leaking information. You, on the other hand; we
have evidence of your crimes.” He jerked his head at her escort, who began
to shuffle her away.
“You impersonated a Council leader, and infiltrated our private meetings!
You have no right to do this! The people will rise up! There are more of us
than you!” She trailed off as she was being pulled out of the room. The rest
of the detainees were taken out behind her.
“Sir,” Azad began, “why didn’t you just teleport them all into holding?”
“I want people to see,” Hrockas answered coldly as he watched the last of
them go. “I want them to see what happened here today.” He spun around. “Mr.
Glarieda, on behalf of Castlebourne, and its executive leadership, I would
like to extend my deepest apologies to what you have endured. Your
experience has illuminated a number of security flaws in our system,
particularly in 2.5Dome. You never should have been able to step through
that first door with a broken emergency beacon. I want to assure you that
the entire dome has been shut down, and will not be reopening until we have
secured a more robust set of guardrails. Furthermore, I have called in a
third party to audit our system overall to identify any flaws or room for
improvement. As everything on this planet is free, I can offer you no
compensation for your suffering, but...” He looked around at the now empty
chambers. “The Council is yours for now. I try to stay out of politics. I
only stepped in because it was a conspiracy to commit murder. That’s rare
these days, and I cannot allow a permanent death to overshadow what we’re
trying to build here. Not to sound callous.”
“I understand,” Dreychan responded sincerely. “I’m grateful for the assist.
Particularly to you, Dominus Petit.”
“It’s my job,” Azad said. “You almost had that skeleton. I would have been
there sooner, though, but we could not get the emergency exits open. I know
that sounds bad, but it’s what we’re gonna use to nail these guys. They
hacked our system, which means they left a trail for us to follow.”
“Yeah,” Dreychan agreed with the silver lining.
“Well, we’ll leave you to it,” Hrockas said. “I have to get back to work.”
“Wait,” Dreychan said before they could disappear on him. “I don’t know what
I’m doing. You can’t have a council with one person. We need to fix this,
and I’m not qualified to do that alone. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but
I will need to maintain a line of communication with my...murder
conspirators. They may have tried to kill me, but I recognize that they were
doing it to protect Ex-Exins. They will help me.”
Hrockas nodded. “Azad can make arrangements for visitation. They will be
monitored, however, so the expectation of privacy that this council enjoyed
before has been undone. You’ll get it back once you backfill the positions,
and I’m satisfied that there will be no repeat of this incident.”
“I appreciate that, sir,” Dreychan said.
Hrockas disappeared.
“What the hell just happened?” Dreychan asked rhetorically. This was crazy.
He couldn’t run the Council, even to find all of its replacements. Even with
help, he was not the man for the job. He didn’t even ask to be on it in the
first place. He simply didn’t have any choice. When they first arrived, and
started establishing their rules, Hrockas insisted that every old world had
representation. It made sense at the time, and Dreychan agreed because the
Council was so big, he could disappear into it. Now it all fell on him, and
he wasn’t prepared for it. Goddammit, why wasn’t there just one other person
who didn’t try to kill him the other day?
Azad started to breathe deliberately. “Just breathe, Drey. Like this. In.
Out. Slowly. You can do this. You’re not alone, even if it might feel like
that. You can reach out to the Expatriate Protection Bureau. As far as we
know, they weren’t involved in this. The EPB was the internal police force
that the former refugees created. It too was separate from Hrockas and the
other planetary executives, but also operated independently of the Council.
They were there to check and balance each other. Yeah, they could help.
Perhaps they would be able to simply take over.
Dreychan breathed. “Thanks. I’ll be okay. Things are getting easier. The
Vellani Ambassador returns every day with fewer and fewer refugees. There
are fewer decisions to make than ever.”
“That’s a very positive way to look at things,” Azad said. “He tapped on his
tablet a few times, and then tapped the corner of it against Dreychan’s
watch. Contact me whenever you need. A Dominus commands hundreds of
thousands of troops, but we are presently technically in peacetime, since
the Exin Empire threat is only that; a threat. And it will be my job to lead
them, not train them now. So I have a lot of time on my hands.”
Dreychan glanced at his watch to make sure his contact card came through.
“This has your quantum signature. You planning on leaving this region of
space?”
Azad smiled. “Light lag is still a problem even if you’re not light years
away. I’m helping develop a new adventure that’s not actually under one of
the domes. It’s on the edge of the solar system.”
“Oh, interesting. Well, I’ll let you get to it. I appreciate your support.”
“Any time. It was nice meeting you.” Azad disappeared.
Dreychan was all alone, in the literal sense anyway. He was in charge here
now...of the chairs, and the tables. They better get in line, or suffer the
consequences. That was his first order of business. He walked around the
tables, and straightened the chairs out so they would look nice. Some of
them had been knocked over in the kerfuffle. As trivial as it was, it made
him feel a tiny bit useful. It was unreasonable to begin any real work
today. The only item on the agenda was to approve the plan for the stellar
engine, and there was no longer anyone here with the right to make that
call. There was certainly no need for a vote. Once people were found to
backfill all of these many positions, at least the room would be clean and
tidy. Hell, the other original council members might even ultimately be
totally acquitted, and return. He didn’t know. So to prevent any kind of
future conflict, he just took the day off, and went back home. He would come
to regret it.
