Rich sat in the basement of Waverly academy and stared at the wall.

Cole cleared his throat, but Rich ignored it. The guy's sinuses didn't do well with the air of the bunker, as dry and cold and filtered as it was.

He could feel Cole's eyes on him, and he wondered how he'd misjudged the youth. Or maybe Cole just had resting murder face? The thought made him want to laugh, but he squelched it.

It still felt unreal.

Not half an hour ago he'd hopped out of the game to find himself in a different dorm, glaring at Cole.

Cole had interrupted him mid-rant, and led him silently back to his own room. The bullet-holes were a mute testament to what had almost happened.

Then had come the proctors, armed and sweating, to haul them both off down below the staff housing building, and into the tunnels that he'd known abstractly were here for years, but never had reason to see before. It wasn't much to look at; old concrete and exposed pipes and faded white paint. Dust on all surfaces, and the sound of water dripping in the distance, old government warrens made by the lowest bidding contractor.

He and Cole had shared few words since then, waiting in the dim, sepia light of the old tubes, hearing the proctors shift uneasily outside the door.

“Cutter,” Rich muttered.

“Yep.” Cole made a popping noise for the 'p' sound of the word.

Rich glanced at him, but said nothing more.

He had a call to make. It was past due, to tell the truth, but hopefully it wasn't too late. Rich checked the time, and waited until precisely nine seconds after the ninth minute of the hour.

Outgoing Message to: Frederick Tassle>> Hey, Fred.

Incoming Message From: Frederick Tassle

>>You've caught me teaching. Can it wait?

>>Yeah. Just... I love you guys. I miss you so much right now.

>>We love you too, Richard. We'll talk later.

Rich closed the connection, and rested his eyes. Then he sent the same text to his mother. Just a simple “I love you.”

They were being monitored, of course. No way around it. But that didn't matter. He'd known he would be walking into this situation, and had prepared things ahead of time with Mom and Fred.

There was no guarantee that this plan would work, but it was out of his hands now. And if anyone could pull it off, it would be Fred. His teacher-turned-stepfather had to be one of the canniest men in the Ministry. The fact that he was still alive was proof of that.

Time passed, and he watched the seconds click by in his Echo. And eventually there came the sound that he was waiting for.

Tok tok.

Tok tok.

Tok tok as rubber-shod metal canes hit the ground, hauling the tortured form of Mayhew down the concrete corridor, and towards them.

His bodyguards entered the room first, of course, sweeping Rich and Cole with mirrored gazes, then heading to the corners. And then the man himself, clothes wet with sweat, face flushed. The smell of him was damp and like stagnant water in a pool, with algae clogging the intakes and brown masses lurking in thankfully obscured depths.

The old man stopped and looked him from head to toe, glittering eyes betraying nothing, face as stony as ever. “Are you hurt?”

He's being polite, Rich knew. “I'm fine. Just a lot of questions.”

Mayhew sighed. “That inquisitive mind again.” He looked to the door. “Leave us. Fall back to point twelve.”

The proctors exchanged uneasy looks, then departed, boots clomping on the concrete as they faded down the hall.

“And these?” Cole asked, glancing back and forth between the bodyguards.

“They're Mnemoi. We're good.”

“Holy shit,” Cole said, eyes going wide.

“I'm missing something,” Rich remarked.

“They've had their neurons chemically altered,” Cole said. “Their short-term memories get wiped on a regular basis.”

“Every day is a new day for them,” Mayhew said. “They get an hour briefing detailing who they're serving today, and what the job entails. Then they go to sleep at the end of the day and forget it all. The have no Echoes, their minds do not hold facts, and they're conditioned and hardened against torture. No matter what an interrogator does to them, they won't crack within twenty-four hours. At which point they'll forget any vital information they have.”

The old man inhaled, and smiled. “These are some of the first of the new process, too. It's reversible, so after their terms of service are up they'll go back to their families or wherever they chose to retire to with a hefty salary and no memory of what they had to do to earn it.”

That was simultaneously disturbing and intriguing. The question that occurred immediately to Rich was more troubling, though. “What happened to the Mnemoi who were from the older processes? You're implying that the process wasn't reversible for them?”

Mayhew shrugged. “They knew what they were getting into. And their next of kin were well compensated for it.”

Rich nodded, kept his face as blank as possible.

But Mayhew watched him closely. “You called your Father.”

“He's not my father, but yes.”

“That's right. Your father's dead.”

Rich clenched his teeth together.

“Why? Why call him?”

“Because I might not get another chance to tell him that I love him,” Rich whispered.

“But you only texted that to your mother.”

“Yes. She would have questions. And I'm pretty sure it would be a bad idea for me to answer any of them right now. Especially in the state I am, she'd notice something wrong.”

Mayhew nodded slowly, the loose skin under his neck compressing. For a second Rich was reminded of Geebo, and he bit back laughter.

“To be honest, I'm wondering how you're keeping so calm,” Mayhew said, leaning his back against the wall, the corded muscles in his arms writhing as he braced his canes.

“It's not the first time someone's tried to kill me,” Rich said. “You know that.”

“I've seen trained soldiers who've handled this sort of situation worse than you.” Mayhew shook his head. “Nevertheless. You said you had questions. All right, I think you earned some answers, boy. Ask.”

“What is this really about?” Rich asked. “You say it's about moving the camps online. What's behind this? There's more to it. If there weren't, then Cutter wouldn't be trying to shoot me.”

“Cutter is insane,” Mayhew said. “He started believing in conspiracy theories. He went rogue when he couldn't keep his paranoia concealed anymore, killed three agents of Faith on his way out.”

“He seemed sane when he spoke to me. Didn't try to sell me on any conspiracy theories.”

“That's because he thinks you're part of it, probably,” Cole said. “His particular conspiracy is that Generica Online is corrupting people. That AI's in the game are using it to possess people's bodies while they play, and act in the real world.”

Rich laughed. “Games are corrupting our youth. Got it.”

But a part of him was acutely aware that he resembled that remark. His body was doing things under 'Rotgoriel's' control. The last few weeks had been ample proof of that. Pat and Greg had even started to notice, and it had taken work and coordination and scheduling to make sure he minimized Rotgoriel's exposure to his friends.

“More than that,” Mayhew said. “Faith had a similar project to this one in the works. Those three agents he killed were the heads of it. And also players with the Cultist class, come to think of it.”

“Job, sir,” Cole corrected. “Not class.”

“Bah. Same thing.”

“AI's. Seriously?” Rich shook his head. “Those things have been bogeymen for decades. Tinfoil hat guys have been searching for them forever, and whatever they find, it's always fake.”

Mayhew and Cole shared a look. They weren't smiling, when they looked back to Rich.

“Please tell me you're joking,” Rich said, slowly.

“I wish I was,” Mayhew sighed. “They're real and we don't know enough about them to know how badly we're fucked as a species.”

“In popular fiction they're always tied to hardware,” Cole said. “But the instances we've managed to record suggest they aren't. That they live in the darknet.”

“This is one reason that Echoes were developed. They're integrated with living tissue, require that integration to function. To date we've never observed AIAA— Artificial Intelligence attributed activity, on them.”

“We didn't develop Echoes,” Rich said. “How are they part of our action against them?”

“They're not. Not our action.” Mayhew sighed. “This is bigger than us. The truth of the matter is we got strongarmed into compliance by the other major remnants. We're trying to run a totalitarian theocracy here, you think we wanted people to have video recorders and phones in their heads? If we couldn't bottleneck the net access, we'd have been screwed years ago.”

“Who's running this then?”

“Nobody. That's part of the problem. If we had more clout we could devote a bureau to it. But we don't. Anyway, that's not the problem. Or the solution. The problem is Cutter.”

Rich shook his head, tried to focus. “Sorry. You just told me one of my childhood boogeymen does exist. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it.”

“If I were you I'd worry more about the one who thinks you're the boogeyman,” Cole said.

“Which brings me back to the original question,” Rich said. “This is about more than moving the camps online, isn't it?”

“Yes and no,” Mayhew sighed. He was silent for a bit, breathing heavily. He hadn't stopped sweating, Rich noticed. His face was as wet or wetter than it had been when he entered the room.

Rich wasn't the only one to notice. “Sir?” Cole asked, taking a few steps closer.

Mayhew raised a cane, jabbed him gently in the chest. “I'm fine. Just old. Sit down.”

Cole obediently flopped to the floor, and folded his legs together indian-style.

“We do need the camps online,” Mayhew said. “If we want to keep the international trade going at all.”

“International trade?” Rich frowned.

“You think our people are the only ones in the camps? We run the best, most efficient prison systems in the remnants. We've been getting political prisoners and undesirables from the surrounding nations ever since we opened them. They pay well to make their own problems disappear. But Haskeen, damn his eyes, has been too loud during his fall. He's been threatening to disclose the international trade to every global media outlet he can reach if we don't back him. But backing him now isn't possible. His son saw to that.”

“I'm surprised he hasn't accidentally fallen downstairs onto some bullets by now,” Rich commented.

“It's being handled. But not fast enough,” Mayhew shook his head. “The biggest customers are cutting ties. So this virtual solution is the best possible short-term one. They can keep people in hotsleep on their own soil, and send them virtually to Ministry camps. Then they can say with straight faces that they're not sending their people to us.”

It was a plausible story.

But it wasn't the whole of the truth. Why had Cutter sent him to Fimble instead of killing him in his room, that first time he'd come to Waverly? Why did he want to set things up with some dragon-on-dragon conflict? And then there was the city, that intangible enigma that was definitely not a coincidence.

There might be information here, but just coming out and asking those questions might do more harm than good. He wasn't among friends. No, he'd have to go fishing for answers, in the most oblique ways he could.

“Why are the Bharstool Warmers marching an army close to our location? What are they after?”

“That's an odd segue,” said Cole.

“You think it's coincidence that they kill my ass online while Cutter takes a shot at me outside the game? I don't think so.”

“Same thing we want. Same thing everybody wants, from the game. Guilds.” Mayhew shrugged, his entire body dipping a few inches, as his canes took his weight. “Ah. Shouldn't have done that. Shit.”

“Guilds are worth killing me over?” Rich frowned.

“Yeah, frankly, they are,” Cole said. “It's obvious that they're in the game. Just hidden, somehow. It's also obvious that they're a bottleneck to real power. From everything implied, from everything the game suggests, once you hit level twenty-five you need a guild to advance further. You think that the biggest organization in the game doesn't want that bad enough to kill? Especially if it's some kid in the Ministry, whacked by the Ministry government? Shit, that's Tuesday here. Cutter's working with them. Has to be.”

Except that can't be right, Rich knew. Boombabe wanted to capture me, hold on to me for a week, then kill me. Cutter just tried to kill me today. But he said nothing.

“As far as our part in it, we want guilds too,” Mayhew said. “We start running virtual prison camps online, you think other players won't try to grief them? But if we got guilds, and a batch of experienced players more powerful than anyone else in the game, then they can try and they can die. But it's less of a concern for us. Not worth killing over.”

Now that part was an out and out lie, Rich knew. Life was cheap here.

“I'm thinking... and this is just a theory,” Cole said, his tone light and musing. “I'm thinking that Cutter believes there's a clue to guilds in Fimble. I'm wondering about that city. I'm betting this is how he's drawing the Warmers in.”

“It's possible. Though I don't see what the city has to do with guilds,” Rich said. And now he was lying.

That copper mask had been enough of a clue. This was the thing that they had raided the cult leader's hut for, years back. This was the lost city of that old evil story. Though why it should hold a secret related to Guilds, he didn't know. But then, it was still a game, after all. The developers could have stuck it in there because the city was a high-level challenge, without any story or rationale needed.

“In any case,” Mayhew said, wheezing slightly, “I need to step up my plans. And you need more security. We're switching your quarters, you'll bunk in the building above us, with four of my Mnemoi assigned to guard you each day.”

“You can spare that many?” Rich asked.

“Don't worry yourself about that,” Mayhew said with a faint smile. “I'll be fine. Right Cole?”

Cole offered a grin that was pure malice. “Anyone who tries, dies.”

Mayhew nodded, but his gaze never left Rich. “I'll be coming to back you up in-game, too. Upper Derope's had enough of the Warmers. We were gonna get there in two weeks, but I can get some asses moving if I push.”

“Thank you,” Rich nodded. “It means a lot, knowing that I have some help on this.”

Another lie, but a slight one.

“Your new bodyguards will escort you to your new quarters,” Mayhew said. “Get back to game as soon as you can. Not you, Cole. Stay here. Let's talk a bit.”

The rooms the four mnemoi led him to were pretty luxurious, compared to his old dorms. They were bigger than his old apartment, the one he'd spent most of his childhood in. They had decent air conditioning, and the bathroom was about the size of his entire dorm room.

Rich paused, and looked back at the suited men. “So how does this work? Two outside, two inside?”

“One and three,” the red-haired one of the quartet said. “Two patrolling, one at the door outside, and one by you at all times.”

“All times. Even...” he cast a glance toward the toilet.

“Yes sir. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

“And when you need to reset your memories?”

“We're on staggered shifts. Two and two for that.”

“Okay.” Rich showered, trying to ignore the suited man in the bathroom with him. The guy showed little interest in his nudity, thankfully, and silently followed him to one of the bedrooms after Rich had dressed again.

Rich lay back on the bed. “This is probably going to get boring for a while.”

“Don't worry about us, sir.”

“All right then.”

Rich closed his eyes in the real world. But he didn't log in, not immediately. He tested the network, and found to his relief that it was less secured than the student dorms. And that the darknet routers from his dorm room had been moved here, with their settings basically unchanged.

He dove into his Echo archives, and got to work.

When he'd been admitted to Waverly academy, he'd had to leave certain things behind.

And among those things were the hacking tools that he'd spent three years accumulating and maintaining. He hadn't dared use them at Waverly, too much risk of discovery, and just the possession of a few of them would have gotten him sent to the camps without hesitation or hope, no matter who his patron might be.

But now... now things had changed. Now someone was shooting at him, and the people who were protecting him were still feeding him lies. And so from a hundred different drives and clouds and files scattered in a hundred different hidden places, he built up his arsenal once more.

It was time to stop playing defense, and reacting to his enemies.

It was time to hack the system, and find the truth for himself.