《Party Member For Hire》


 PROLOGUE

    On the edge of dawn or doom, the adventurers made for the Code Keep. Four in all¡ªsummoner, ranger, thief and soldier¡ªthey ascended the twisting mountain steps to carry toward the half-dark summit a rare and vital hope.


    The Summoner was the first into the keep. He was many years in age with a gray, rugged face beneath the hood of a silken cloak. Past battered wooden doors he led his party, crossing roots and rubble to arrive at a large circular dais, where he hastily began assembling an apparatus. Whilst he worked, the Ranger¡ªa light-haired female donned in woodland green¡ªfired from her bow a number of small, cloth-wrapped objects into the three stone archways that led toward the tower¡¯s center, a freezing trap here, a fire trap there. For the Thief, these archways were stepping stones to reach the rotten scaffolding around the inside of the keep. There he swung from a tattered banner to perch upon the stone ledge above the entranceway, his sword whip dangling like a devil¡¯s tail. Beneath him loomed none other than the Soldier, whose singular tactic included standing in plain sight with a hand on the hilt of each sheathed sword, a gleam of forthcoming dawn in his watchful gaze.


    They had come for a final battle against evil. High above them all, the tower¡¯s oculus held in it the hues of embattled twilight.


    This was it. This was the end.


    With a hiss from its base, the Summoner¡¯s apparatus shivered to life. The device had three heavy legs supporting a long neck fitted with a single blue-glowing crystal. The Summoner adjusted a set of dials and the crystal glowed brighter yet, until from its prismatic end came a beam of light that shone up at the back wall of the Code Keep.


    ¡°Behold!¡± the Summoner cried out, his voice struggling against the hum of the enkindled crystal. ¡°The Source!¡±


    In the eye of that beam appeared row after row of symbols up the tower. It was a language that few could understand, but as the Summoner adjusted the crystal further the mysterious runes became more comprehensible. They were commands that gave the wide world its fundamental shape. With a motion of his hand, the Summoner cast white birds from beneath his cloak, which flew up into the code-glowing heights and began to peck at the revealed symbols. Until, as if the letters themselves were as light as cloth, the birds carried the commands from one place to another.


    At once, the Code Keep began to change. The serpentine roots retreated back into the stone floor. The rubble rattled to life and tumbled end over end to reform itself into ornate pillars or fit like puzzle pieces into the keep¡¯s stony crevices. Indeed, it was as if the Summoner had unlocked the secrets to the reverse flow of time; though the truth was much simpler: the world around them was as programmed as the songs from a tinkerer¡¯s automatic bells. The Summoner was merely reprogramming the Code Keep to play a new ¡°song¡±¡ªa song of a world that should have been but never was.


    Through the stone-cut windows and out through the tower¡¯s oculus, the dawn¡ªwhich had been on pause for three days now¡ªbegan at last to progress. Shadows long-clung to the walls began to move, animated by the resumed functioning of the world. Tossing back his hood, the Summoner called out in victory. The Ranger craned her neck to peer at the sky above the keep, where tendrils of pink, red and orange pushed away the night. The Thief too cast an eye out at that glorious change, to see their long-fought quest come to a close.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    The Soldier, however, did none of these things. No, he was focused only on the figure that had just stepped into view of the Code Keep¡¯s entrance.


    Adventurers . . . hissed the Knight low and without warmth.


    All turned now to see their adversary looming at the entrance, his form half crouched to fit through the doorway. So you¡¯ve elected to bring back the day; yet have you only brought me a second serving of night. With a scrape of obsidian armor against gray stone, the Knight stepped through the shattered doors and beneath the first archway.


    The freezing trap was the first to be triggered. In a flash, the gadget exploded to send a wave of cold from its cloth-wrapped body, dousing the Knight in a white haze. The Soldier did not wait around to see what would come of it; unsheathing his twin swords, he growled and rushed forward to meet the enemy. As he neared, he leapt over the frozen floor to arrive inside that ice cloud, the Ranger¡¯s arrows screaming by in accompaniment. There he found the Knight¡¯s gloomy form embellished with ice, though the enemy himself none the worse for wear. With a wallop of his black sword, the Knight parried the Soldier¡¯s initial attack, and in doing so dispelled the icy mist around him like a great wind.


    The Soldier was not impressed. Springing forward again, he lashed sparks from the Knight¡¯s armor, and with a deft dodge avoided his adversary¡¯s next blow. This as the two began to pass beneath the second archway, where the Thief leapt from his perch to land atop the Knight¡¯s back, his thorny whip transformed in a flick of his wrist into a glimmering sword.


    The poets will sing of your defiance . . . the Knight said, reaching back with his free hand to pluck the Thief from his shoulders, all the while he fought off the Soldier, once they¡¯ve fished their tongues out from the black pits!


    With little effort, he tossed the Thief up between the archways. With similar ease the Summoner summoned a column of blue crystal around which the Thief whipped his transformable sword to swing himself around and back through the arch. Alas, this second attempt was just as ineffective as the first¡ªwith a powerful kick the Knight sent both Soldier and Thief rolling away from him, their weapons clanking against the hard floor. The Knight stood eyeing the central dais and the summoner who stood upon it. Wholly unaffected by the arrows bouncing from his armor, the Knight stepped through the next archway.


    In a burst of fire, the flames of the second trap turned the gathered ice instantly to steam. The Knight stumbled back from the sudden blow to crash into the first archway. A rumble echoed up the tower as the stone arch toppled to crush the Knight beneath its weight. The adventurers would not get a better chance than this. With all their might, they leapt and fired and slashed and summoned beasts as fiercely as they could muster. They grit their teeth and set upon the Knight their collective strength.


    Unfortunately, that effort would have been better spent preparing instead for the final final boss: that pair of shadow dragons that now had the jump on them.


    From the top of the Code Keep, a shrill cry of beasts best undiscovered. To the growing hues of dawn, the sibling shadow dragons dove down the length of the tower. Before the adventurers could scarcely act did those two beasts crash into the defenses that awaited them. No sooner could the party send its attack one way did the next dragon draw them to another position, until the four had been divided. All the while the adventurers fought, the Knight pulled himself out from under the rubble, his dark spirit none the worse for wear¡ªfor indeed spirit was all that remained inside that obsidian armor of his.


    Sure, as the Knight unhurriedly made his way to the dais, there was the adventurer or three who tried to stop him. But there was just too much dragon to contend with, not and stop the Knight too. So, essentially, he strolled uncontested to the Summoner¡¯s apparatus.


    Placing a hand upon the device, the Knight received a gift most generous: the complete overhaul of the world. Now he had only to recreate it in the image of what it never was, never was and never should have been.

 CHAPTER 1

    In the span of a breath, Vy¡¯s blade left its sheath to hover between her and the beast. She¡¯d been tracking it all morning, this foul-smelling, ghastly hulk of a wolf. This across ten miles of swaying summer woodland, to arrive at the beast¡¯s den deep in the foothills. She stepped forward. As she did, the wolf looked up from its late breakfast¡ªleftover townsperson, from the look of it¡ªits muscles going tense beneath its blood-matted fur. A growl emerged low in its throat. Just then, a sudden shiver up Vy¡¯s spine. Not from fear but as if from . . .


    There was no time to think about it. Like a trap sprung, the wolf lunged from its position, its teeth bared and hungry for tomorrow¡¯s leftovers.


    Brinng-brinng! Brinng-brinng!


    . . . With the glimmering blade half down the beast¡¯s gullet, she paused the simulation to take the call. Like paper set aflame, the bristling summer forest withered away to reveal before her a cramped and low-lit apartment. The great hush of the forest, the warmth of the sun across the back of her neck¡ªall vanished to return her to normal everyday life. Or as everyday as life got for a party member for hire anyway.


    With a click, the neurowear ring snapped open around the crown of Vy¡¯s head and she pulled herself down from the VR apparatus to land on the cold tile floor. The cold. She suspected that was the source of her shiver earlier. While the simulation had been telling her brain that the world was a balmy eighty-one degrees¡ªwhich matched the neural input of the virtual woodland¡ªshe now felt the chill of the real world again. Little known fact about envirtualization: the professionals are all nude or near to it when they go under. A sudden fluctuation of temperature is one thing; unpredictable cross-chatter between the two realities regarding something like the weight and fit of your armor is another thing entirely. A successful envirt needed to feel completely immersed in the illusion of her armor¡ªfor Vy, being down to nothing but your skivvies did just that.


    Of course, it helped if you remembered to close the window.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, hold your horses,¡± she said to the continued ring of the call emanating from a speaker on the drone buzzing nearby. ¡°Just a second.¡±


    Shaking her pearl-colored hair out from the mesh connection cap, Vy squeezed past stacks of equipment to arrive at the open window, which she promptly closed shut. There was a small metal sink attached to the wall beneath the window and drinking from the faucet she threw an eye at the cityscape standing in front of her, from this perspective a dozen closely spaced buildings piled with small, sad-looking windows. She stood and leaned in against the glass to peer up at the hint of blue sky tucked away up there in the heavens. She sighed.


    ¡°Vy,¡± she deadpanned, signaling the drone with a movement of her hand to begin the call. Before anyone could even speak she signaled again and the drone began projecting a display in front of her hand¡ªa wide array of swords and armor and other equipment.


    From the drone¡¯s speaker, the sound of muffled voices talking over each other. Someone had their hand over the microphone but didn¡¯t realize that flesh and bone was a weak armor against anything at all. This told Vy all she needed to know about the people on the other end.


    ¡°You¡¯ve got about five seconds,¡± she said, extending the ¡°five¡± for dramatic effect as she swiped through the selection of swords floating in front of her. Midway through was a sword called Swansong, her favorite, and alongside the projected image of the sword was an array of stats. She peered at the numbers a moment and then blowing her hair out of her face she flicked away the display.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s been a real pleasure,¡± she spat, reaching up to signal to end the call.


    But before she could, a voice spoke up. ¡°¡ªYes, I¡¯m calling for a Vivian Thornheart?¡± The voice had a low croak to it, probably the result of poor communication skills but Vy was willing to go so far as to assume it was a cold.


    She screwed her face up as if there was anybody to see. ¡°You mean Vivian Thornheart, the Incognita avatar? Because you believe that an actual person would have the name ¡®Thornheart¡¯ . . . ?¡±


    Again the call went muffled as the two voices bickered back and forth: I told you to let me handle the. . . Oh and what do you know about¡ª? No, she isn¡¯t, she. . . Well, if you know so much why am I the one to. . .


    Vy interrupted the chatter with a deliberate clearing of her throat.


    ¡°Ah, yes, I¡ªI¡¯m sorry,¡± came a different voice, this one more pleasant to the ear, at least, ¡°please forgive my colleague, he¡¯s obviously spent far too many hours in intellectual seclusion. Vy, you say? So you¡¯re the pilot of the avatar known as Vivian Thornheart?¡±


    She leaned against the sink a moment only to stand up straight again at the touch of the cold metal against bare skin. ¡°I¡¯m not a pilot. . . .¡±


    The croaking voice returned. ¡°Well, in theory, the interface system best matches that of the traditional coupling of man and mach¡ª¡±


    ¡°Skip it,¡± Vy cut in. ¡°What do you want?¡±


    A nervous laugh from the second, more agreeable voice. ¡°Of course, yes, someone like yourself would want to get right down to it. Ah. Ah. Hello. My name is Elliot Orenfall, a student at the University of RM¡ª¡±


    ¡°RM?¡±


    ¡°Reformed Massachusetts.¡±


    ¡°Mmm.¡± Vy didn¡¯t really keep up with political stuff; it was all too volatile and prone to chaos for her tastes. She much preferred the clockwork regularity of the virtual world. There an overthrow of the central government could be rolled back as easy as a systems update. The same could not be said about the world outside of the Cog.


    ¡°Alright, boys, since you¡¯re reticent to get to the point, let me see if I can guess.¡± She nodded at the drone to follow her as she made her way back through the stacks of equipment toward the far side of the apartment. There she picked clothing at random from the vast array of articles that dangled from this or that right angle and began slipping herself inside. ¡°You¡¯re looking for an easy route toward some high-level loot? Or might you only need an ace in the hole for a clan faceoff? No, I¡¯ve got it: You two are having a hell of a time completing the Nine Trials of Dragondale? Yeah, that¡¯s a tough one, I tell you. . . .¡± Vy had been a party member for hire for three years now, long enough to know that 99% of jobs were solving one of three basic problems: loot, rivalry or skill. In fact, even that percentage was leaning pretty hard on the benefit of the doubt¡ªin all her years she¡¯d yet to encounter that elusive 1%.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    That was, of course, until today.


    ¡°Well, actually, our needs our quite to the contrary. You see, a few of my colleagues and I are putting together a¡ªoh what to call it?¡ªsurvey group to travel into one of the Incognita.¡± Elliot paused a moment as if awaiting a response, which never came. ¡°Anyway, we depart tomorrow morning for a month-long excursion. I understand that all this is very last minute. But your role would be to act as a . . . well, as a guide, I guess you¡¯d call it.¡± Once again, Elliot paused to allow for Vy¡¯s reply, and when he didn¡¯t get one he raised the stakes. ¡°. . . A role which URND has specifically set aside funds for, in the event of what they call ¡®extra-academic costs.¡¯¡±


    Bingo. There was no quid pro quo like cold hard cash; they had her full attention now. ¡°So you¡¯re saying you need a bodyguard. And you two are . . . debuggers?¡±


    Through the speaker, the collective snicker of both voices, as if Vy had just told a joke¡ªwhich she demonstrably had not. Elliot cleared his throat as the realization dawned on him. ¡°No, no, we¡¯re graduate students, not . . . debuggers. Academic researchers. My field is techthropology, my colleague is an algoarchaeologist. There would be two more with us, a glitch biologist and a simuphysicist.¡±


    Vy was fully dressed now, and stood looking at the drone with her hand on her hip. ¡°You are aware that these words don¡¯t mean anything to me, right?¡±


    Elliot stammered. It was hard remembering that not everyone lived in the same bubble as you. ¡°You¡¯re absolutely right, how presumptuous of me. The short version is that we all study the fundamental nature of the computer-generated simulation. Myself, I am writing a dissertation on the historical intersection of artificial intelligence and man, ¡®technology¡¯ + ¡®anthropology¡¯. The expedition is actually out of that department¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªThere¡¯s a whole department of . . . tech¡ªtechthro . . . ?¡±


    ¡°Techthropology, yes. It¡¯s a brand new field, but then again so are the simulations themselves. It boggles the mind to think that mankind has in just the last ten years begun employing artificial intelligence to build inhabitable worlds for it. AI that, per the articles of SiMBIOSIS, bar mankind from looking directly at the source code for these worlds. It¡¯s like the onset of Newtonianism all over again¡ªinstead of simply parsing code we must test and retest the virtual world looking for its underlying principles¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªAnd while you¡¯re at it, it seems, waste as much money as possible,¡± Vy quipped, now standing back alongside the VR apparatus where this all began. The drone beeped and projected a notification into the air in front of her: there was apparently a car arriving for her soon. She blew at the air and made her way back to the window. ¡°Elliot, did you send a car?¡±


    She didn¡¯t even give him a chance to answer: ¡°Look, bud, I¡¯m just going to come clean: you don¡¯t need me. The Incognita has special exemptions for universities and research missions; if you put in a request they¡¯ll give you an avatar even higher level than I am, so thank you for the offer, but . . .¡± Vy had the window open and was leaning out to peer down at the vehicle now parking alongside her apartment building. The drone beeped again and she turned to see two options projected into the air behind her: ACCEPT or DISMISS.


    The two voices bickered once more, but this time for their shortest duration yet. When they stopped it was the croaking man¡¯s voice speaking to her again. ¡°Vy, look,¡± the voice said, ¡°I¡¯m afraid we¡¯ve misconstrued the matter.¡±


    ¡°Misconstrued how so?¡± She was back inside now, the drone¡¯s projected image having boxed her in against that side of the room.


    The croaking man¡¯s voice became somber in tone. ¡°The truth is that our expedition isn¡¯t for research at all. You see, one month ago, a number of our peers in the program, including the lead professor of the department, they set out to the Incognita to conduct a field study on¡ªwell, it doesn¡¯t matter really. It was research related is the salient point. Anyway, three days ago, communications stopped entirely. We received one last transmission and after that . . . nothing. It¡¯s like they¡¯ve just vanished.¡±


    Vy waved away this new twist in the job. ¡°Okay, then why don¡¯t you just wake them up? Disconnect them from the Cog and you can just ask them what happened.¡±


    With the band-aid of their real purpose pulled off, Elliot¡¯s voice returned. ¡°Here¡¯s the thing, Vivian¡ªI mean Vy¡ªthis was not a proxy connection. The research team was working directly out of the Reservoir.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re inside the Rez,¡± she said, shocked, ¡°connected directly to the AI? Is that even . . . legal?¡± Indeed, Vy was beginning to wonder if the same question could be asked of this very phone call.


    Elliot made a sound of uncertainty that didn¡¯t exactly comfort her regarding either question. ¡°Legal, well . . . not in some opinions, no. Which is why we can¡¯t just ¡®wake them up¡¯ as you suggested. If we give the acting government any reason at all, they won¡¯t just shut down the department¡ªthe entire university would be culpable for breach of SiMBIOSIS.¡±


    There was your next reason Vy stayed away from politics: Ever since the government was overthrown by the Pillar, the threat of persecution had become more and more a daily occurrence. Yet if what the two were saying was true, that meant the job¡ªillegal or not¡ªhad just graduated from being about an imaginary score in the virtual world to being about actual life and death. Judging from the cavalier way that Elliot and his colleague were discussing the matter, she wasn¡¯t entirely sure they fully understood that themselves.


    If these students (and professor) were in the Rez, that meant they were wired directly into the simulation. At that speed of data transmission, the failsafe systems that prevented the brain from shutting down in the event of the perception of severe trauma couldn¡¯t compete with the immediacy of the simulation. There in Vy¡¯s apartment, for example, the VR system could interrupt the so-called ¡°zero-sum scenario,¡± wherein an envirt whose life points were reduced to zero actually underwent the simulation of death. Like waking up from a dream just before you hit the ground, the user was dropped back into the real world. However, wire someone hot to the Incognita, and there would be no waking up at all. The brain, faced with the simulation of death, responded exactly as it would to the real thing¡ªit died.


    Vy didn¡¯t need to think any longer. ¡°Tell your car I¡¯m on the way,¡± she said, pushing past the drone to head for the closet. There she found a bag and began stuffing it with clothes.


    Elliot hesitated. ¡°You mean you¡¯ll help us? Vy, that¡¯s¡ª¡±


    ¡°Why does it seem like you are speaking to me and not to the car . . . ?¡± She was tossing things in the bag that she wasn¡¯t even sure what body part they went on. In truth, she wasn¡¯t entirely sure she needed to pack anything at all; once they were inside the Cog the issue of ¡®clothes¡¯ became an avatar¡¯s problems. Still, the process kept her mind focused, and when she had packed everything she thought she¡¯d need she went to the VR system and initiated its shutdown and made her way for the door out of her apartment.


    All the while, she heard the croaking man speaking to someone else. When he was done, he returned his attention to her. ¡°Okay, we¡¯ve told him that you¡¯re on your way down. And Vy, there¡¯s one more thing.¡±


    She paused as the door¡ªof course there was more. ¡°Let¡¯s hear it,¡± she said. She motioned for the drone to return to its charging nest and off it went back into the apartment.


    The voice was farther away now, but not so much that she couldn¡¯t hear the croaking man speak. ¡°The short version is this: You¡¯re not the only party member for hire. Remember how Elliot told you that the university has funds set aside for guides? Well, we know that because the research expedition hired one, too.¡±


    Now things were beginning to fall into place. The two didn¡¯t just pull her name out of bucket¡ªthey had found her while trying to contact another for-hire entirely. And she had a feeling she knew exactly who.


    ¡°Let me guess,¡± she said, tossing the bag around her shoulder by the strap, ¡°an avatar by the name of Edston Brinvar?¡±


    Elliot¡¯s voice returned. ¡°That¡¯s right. So you do know him?¡±


    Vy shook her head in disbelief. ¡°Yeah. I know him.¡±


    ---


    Excited to know more before next week''s chapter? Well, be sure to check out the first book in the I, Speedrunner series, The Infinite Lawman, available now on Amazon</a>. While not a part of the series,Party Member for Hire takes place in the same universe--albeit some years before the events of The Infinite Lawman.


    Thank you so very much for reading!!! See you next week :)

 Chapter 2

    There was an old saying, some people called it a curse: ¡°May you live in interesting times.¡± At twenty-six years old, Vy had felt that if the times got any more interesting, she might just scream.


    With a thrum of its engine, the car took off from the curb outside her apartment. The driver, fast asleep in the passenger¡¯s seat, jolted awake at the swing of the vehicle into the flow of traffic. With the look of a person who had just stepped through a wrong door, he glanced bewildered at his surroundings. Vy opened her mouth to speak, but she didn¡¯t get the chance. Within moments, the driver¡¯s chaotic, wide-eyed gaze fell on the small black box in the driver¡¯s seat, a personal EIU wired to the car¡¯s control panel. Seeing it, his memory of reality returned to him, and with a bit of a groan at the inconvenience of waking he nestled his head back into the comfort of his folded arms and fell asleep once more.


    It was the best possible outcome, in Vy¡¯s opinion. She had a great passion for avoiding people; with the threat of small talk diminished to zero she could, to the degree that she did so at all, relax. Leaning her head against the window, she sighed and sat pleasantly lonely watching the cars pass through the sunless streets of the City. Inside each, a driver much like her own engaged in various activities: there, a bald, bearded man sorting knickknacks into piles, and over there, a yawning young woman absorbed in a video magazine. Elsewhere, a large, red-faced man belted a painful aria to his car¡¯s rear-view mirror. This was what happened when you freed people from the shackles of gainful employment, gave them universal basic income as part of their becoming neuro-nannies to an EIU: a whole lot of nothing.


    But such was the modern era. Though you couldn¡¯t see it in the soaring, crowded heights of the City, up there somewhere was an uplink tower known as a pillar¡ªyes, the same ¡°pillar¡± that was the namesake of the acting government. This tower linked together all these EIUs under a banner of distributed automation. EIU stood for ¡°emulated intelligence unit,¡± and it was why, for example, Vy¡¯s driver could both drive and drool from a sleeping mouth at the same time. That black box located in the seat next to him, it carried on it a streamlined imprint of his neural network. That imprint was called a neuro-ROM. While the City¡¯s AI was more than capable of piloting a car, it was a bit like asking a studied artist to watch paint dry. So, instead, such jobs were left to the ¡°lesser¡± intelligences of the modern world, i.e. humans.


    Vy¡¯s own neuro-ROM was employed as a drone controller on the City¡¯s perimeter. As the EIUs were based on read-only memory as opposed to random-access, an operator of a unit still supplied the spark of thought itself. After all, a neuro-ROM was merely a map of possible paths a thought might take; the thoughts themselves came from the operator¡¯s mind and were linked through the pillar to the EIU itself. Far, far in the back of her own mind, Vy could feel her thoughts engaged in this additional task¡ªthe drone was currently diving, calculating trajectory and velocity to buzz the tops of busses coming into the city. Now it was scanning the faces of people inside, data which it collated against a vast trove of personal profiles. There¡ªa face that didn¡¯t belong. Better notify the authorities, timestamp the incident, detain each individual and . . .


    . . . And so it went. A person could drive herself crazy thinking too hard about it, so Vy didn¡¯t. Instead, she did what everybody else did, she accepted the monthly paychecks without much thought at all as to what purpose those background processes served. Doing so had its upside, too¡ªit paid the rent, for one, or at least it usually did. Second, it allowed the operator to focus his time and foreground brain cycles on tasks that were more¡ªand as evidenced by the drivers¡¯ chosen hobbies, the term was up for debate¡ªmentally stimulating.


    For Vy, this spare time was best spent in virtual reality. Unlike the EIUs that bumbled through the basic day-to-day operations of the City, the Incognitas were controlled by an actual artificial intelligence, that aforementioned ¡°studied painter¡± you¡¯d never ask to watch paint dry. In the case of the City, the Cogs were run by a sub-intelligence of the world¡¯s primary AI, the Auto-Reflective Intuition Agent. ARIA for short. Per an agreement made between the Pillar and ARIA¡ªthe so-called articles of SiMBIOSIS¡ªthe subsystem AI under ARIA created vast inhabitable worlds that mankind could do with what he wished. A playpen for a child that couldn¡¯t stop getting itself into trouble.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Most virtual worlds Vy couldn¡¯t care less for¡ªa whole lot of walking infinite sunlit beaches or soaring over sweeping vistas or engaging in copious amounts of sex. Playpen stuff, in Vy¡¯s honest opinion; run-of-the-mill, lowest-common-denominator mental fluff.


    But the Iron . . . oh the Iron was a different beast entirely. This was a reality of clashing steel swords and thunderous magic. Of twinkling mountain empires and dank subterranean strongholds. By the technicians who first set the parameters for the world to be generated by the AI, the Cog was known as the Aera Incognita, Latin for ¡°the unknown era.¡± For the pay-to-win elite who set up in its virtual lands as kings and nobles, that name was compressed into the Aeryn¡ªpronounced with a roll of the tongue, eyyye-rhin. In the mouths of those whose throats the elites stood on to maintain their lands, that name became simply the Iron.


    For those who couldn¡¯t pay-to-win themselves into a lush, forest estate, you came to the Iron with one expectation in mind: to have your ass handed to you.Vy herself had discovered just as much on her first foray into the ¡°unknown era,¡± this way back when she was still using public VR in the City Centralis. Minutes after envirtualization, she and a hodgepodge of companions set out with nothing but their starter cloth armor and a few rusty swords from the town of Iremouth. Sleepy coastal town. Rows of shoddy, soggy houses draped in fog that stretched inland toward the mysterious hills. With the smell of salt carried on the cool breeze, they made for the interior with a pang of great hope in their hearts¡ªand within ten minutes were all chased, cornered and killed to death by the town¡¯s monster-in-waiting, a lumbering rock golem named Mossjack. In a flash, Vy was dropped back into the real world. There, looking around her in the VR hub, she saw her previous companions tossing their neuro-helmets aside. Some left in a huff, others asked the technicians to switch simulations to a Cog more casual. Oh but not Vy. No, she had an entirely different take on their abysmal failure. . . .


    10/10 - Would play again.


    Week after week she returned to the beleaguered sea-side town of Iremouth, this time with the goal ofeventuallytaking on Mossjack, instead of immediately so. Rather than march her hubris back into the hills, she took on low-level quests, your standard basements-infested-with-wild-opossums and herbalist-in-need-of-blood-fronds-from-the-Skittering-Cove type stuff. Once she had grinded her way to a high enough level, she took on a few more challenging adventures: delving deep into the shipwreck of the Weathered Morning, for example, or scaling the Moonbreak Cliffs to place a sunstone in the clutches of a wood-rot altar. There may have been no bootstraps in the era of the Iron, but by whatever loops her level-4 Seabird Boots possessed did she pull herself up by them. Six months in, Vy returned to the fog-covered hills to take on Iremouth¡¯s long-standing adversary¡ªand suffice it to say thatthis timeshe was quite overpowered for the task. With a shimmer of level-10 steel, she sent that hulking Mossjack to his Mossjack-y grave, and to this day the pile of her victory stood for all envirts to look upon.


    It wasn¡¯t long after that Vy decided it was time to build her own system. No more public VR for her, no sir. The cost of the equipment, while beyond the basic income her EIU afforded her, was not insurmountable. Withword of her in-Cog exploits having spread throughout the City Centralis, she found easy money in the taking on of menial tasks for other envirts logging in to the Iron. So, the same grind that she had subjected her avatar to she now endured again and again as other players, this a hundred times over.


    Oh the number of times that she climbed the sheer walls of Moonbreak Cliffs to place that glowing sunstone; she felt like she knew those crags by heart, that she could recount each handhold in size and shape the way an info merchant could his sundry wares. Though it was grueling, quest by quest by quest she inched closer to her goal, until at last she finally had the funds together. What was more, booting up her own VR unit the very first time, she was in the unique position of having earned it via the rendering of services to evirts in need, which meant that¡ªif she so chose¡ªshe could turn her hobby into a career. And thus did Vivian ¡°Thornheart¡± become a party member for hire.


    So, perhaps she did live in those ¡°interesting times¡± of which the curse spoke: while the Pillar gradually consumed the real world, the people¡ªlike her drooling driver here¡ªlazed about in virtual ones. Yet though modern technology had become a kind of numbing agent for human potential, there were some who found their true purpose in it.


    For Vy, this purpose was the virtual world. The Aeryn, the Iron, was her home.


    ---


    Excited to know more before next week''s chapter? Well, be sure to check out the first book in the I, Speedrunner series, The Infinite Lawman, available now on Amazon</a>. While not a part of the series,Party Member for Hire takes place in the same universe--albeit some years before the events of The Infinite Lawman.


    Thank you so very much for reading!!! See you next week :)

 Chapter 3

    It was a long ride. Exiting the cramped confines of the City, the EIU-controlled car pushed north, where hovel by hovel the outlying boroughs gave way to the wintry forests of Reformed Massachusetts. Vy, taking a cue from her driver, slept a good deal of the way, though from time to time she would roll the window down to feel the rush of the wind against her face. The cold air was like a salve against thought; she needn¡¯t think about the task at hand or the danger that the graduate students were in or the news of Edston¡¯s part in all this, whatever it might be.


    She could just breath.


    It was nearing dark by the time the car arrived alongside campus. In that time, another city had risen around her¡ªnot the City, with its imposing grandeur and bustling isolation, but a smaller, more intimate metropolis from a bygone era. People used to call it Boston, back before the Pillar erected one of its uplink towers at the center. Now it was better known as Reztown, home of the Reservoir, from whence the City¡¯s AI signal originated. Situated on a harbor, the squat cityscape was cut through by rivers now frozen in the dead of winter. Stuffing her short hair inside of a knitted cap¡ªshe was glad she brought that change of clothes after all¡ªVy peered out the car window at the sheets of river ice suffused in the mixed light of the fading sunset and the streetlamps.


    Just then, a ping from the control panel. Turning, the car traveled past university buildings that loomed on either side. However, rather than pull into any of the parking deck entrances, the car instead came to a gradual stop alongside a row of modest, nondescript dwellings crammed between two taller, more modern buildings. Well, not ¡°dwellings¡± per se but privately owned businesses, the facades of which were adorned with configurations of fresh snow¡ªlaid across the window ledge of an info merchant¡¯s store front, or collected in the hollows along either side of an EIU repair shop¡¯s stoop. Regarding the establishment in front of which the car now sat idling, the snow was lining the top of a flickering sign: The I/O Tavern.


    So their meeting place was a pub. . . . Vy should have expected as much from graduate students, not that it changed anything. Her job wasn¡¯t to pass judgment on the choices of others so much as it was to turn those choices into a paycheck. With one last look of pity at her snoozing driver, she threw her bag over her shoulder and stepped out of the car to make her way up the icy stairs and through the pub¡¯s heavy wooden door. Inside, it was like the world was running on a different calendar. Gray remnants of slush at the immediate entrance notwithstanding, the bar was the very definition of cozy¡ªan atmosphere of clinking glasses and lighthearted babbling from the people in attendance, the smell of cheap but warm food. In the nearest corner of the medium-sized space sat an antique jukebox modded with an EIU to read the mood of the patrons in attendance; and judging by the key of the track in question, it was a pretty good mood.


    As Vy entered the room, the music swung toward a mysterious chord; the faintest hint of dissonance beneath layers of upbeat sonic revelry. The caretaker of the EIU, AKA the bartender, looked up at her amidst the slinging of beers to and fro.


    ¡°What can I get you?¡±


    Vy opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, a voice broke out over the cacophony of the crowd at the other end of the bar. ¡°She¡¯ll have another round of what we¡¯re having,¡± the man said, indicating with a thumb over his shoulder one of the tables in the back-corner of the pub. She recognized the voice immediately as that of the man from the phone call, Elliot. In keeping with the timbre of his voice, he had a friendly, good-natured look to him; a squarish face topped with dirty-blonde bangs and the kind, unassuming smirk of a person who thought they were an inch shorter than they actually were.


    ¡°You¡¯re Elliot, I assume,¡± Vy said as a matter of formality. She pushed through the crowd to head to his side of the long cherry wood bar.


    ¡°And you,¡± he said with a widening of that smirk, ¡°must be our guardian angel, Vy ¡®Not-Thornheart¡¯ Thornheart.¡±


    ¡°At your service,¡± she deadpanned, nodding toward the back table. ¡°Shall we?¡±


    The table in question was partied by three others, two females and a male. Above them, a low-hanging lamp cast sharp shadows across the faces in attendance¡ªthe first, a bright-eyed redheaded woman who was engaged in conversation and resting her chin on her thumb and forefinger in concentration; the second, a smaller, demure brunette of foreign descent, listening but not speaking across the documents splayed in front of her. Both were sitting opposite the third person, the aforementioned male, who at the moment of Vy¡¯s arrival at the table was tapping the documents with his finger, his voice hard to hear over the music but not so much that you couldn¡¯t discern the words, nor the quality of an unmistakable croak.


    ¡°. . . No, we can¡¯t just assume that the system will store the direction of their travel after the last transmission. Frankly, I find it incredible that you don¡¯t already know that; the data stream is auto-obfuscated, and no algorithm you or I or anyone else can come up with will interpolate that. Indeed, the only method I can possibly envisage to locate them is to replicate their original experiment to a T¡ª¡±


    The redhead shot a finger out as if a punch line had just paid off. ¡°You mean unless we get lost ourselves?¡± a statement that had the man stuttering to defend himself, all the while nervously adjusting his glasses. But before he could muster that defense, Vy cut in.


    ¡°You won¡¯t get lost. That¡¯s why you hired me.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± he spat, tossing a hand out in the direction of this newcomer. It was only then that he turned in his chair to face her. ¡°And who are you?¡±


    You could tell that this was a group dynamic Elliot was long used to. ¡°This, ladies and gentleman, is our party member for hire¡ª¡±


    ¡°Vy Hawthorn,¡± she said, nodding to each. Beside her, the bartender brought two handfuls of glasses and set them in between the scattered documents.


    ¡°Sam Brey,¡± said the redhead, taking the glass and toasting casually in Vy¡¯s direction.


    ¡°Zaafirah Daher,¡± said the brunette, her accent diminished but not altogether undetectable. ¡°People call me Za.¡± She said the nickname with a hint of a perceived insult in it, which she quickly blinked away with her long lashes.


    ¡°Alright, a lot of single-syllable names going around; so we¡¯re efficient, at least. And you,¡± Vy said, turning her gaze on the croaking man, ¡°let me guess¡ªDan, or Ed, or Chuck. . . .¡±A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡°Lambert Grady,¡± he said, suddenly self-conscious and sitting up straight. ¡°Sorry to upturn the apple cart.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a worm in every bunch,¡± she replied dryly, grabbing a chair from the stack of them to the table¡¯s left and sitting in it. As she did, Elliot¡ªwho seemed to eager to take back the reins¡ªindicated each person¡¯s field of study. Sam was the glitch biologist; Za the simuphysicist. Lambert¡¯s field Vy already knew, but as she attempted to say the word she found it harder to recall than she expected.


    ¡°And you are the archaeo . . . algo . . . anthro . . .¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m an algoarchaeologist,¡± said Lambert, his dark eyes piercing beneath a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. He had an oval face topped with a little widow¡¯s peak. ¡°Anthropology is Elliot¡¯s discipline¡ªsorry, ¡®techthropology,¡¯¡± he finished, proving that though some things change, the academic¡¯s penchant for self-posturing wasn¡¯t one of them.


    Vy was seated now with her bag in her lap and a glass to her lips. It was strange having a beer that didn¡¯t boost your defense or alter your damage ratio. It was simply beer for beer¡¯s sake. ¡°Well, now we all know each other,¡± she said, setting her glass on the table. ¡°So which one of you is going to bring me up to speed here? If what you say is true, and your colleagues are linked directly to the Iron through the Rez, I hate to tell you but we don¡¯t have a lot of time. What do we know? Specifically, what do I need to know?¡±


    In her line of work, one tended to keep things all business, all the time. Most clients were first-time envirts who envied others but lacked the fortitude to do the work themselves. As a matter of course, Vy didn¡¯t much desire to know those kinds of clients beyond the scope of services rendered. Would the same hold true regarding these four clients? That remained to be seen.


    Of course, Elliot was the first to tackle the question. Taking his seat on the other side of the table from Vy, he quickly recounted the tale. ¡°Okay, so four weeks ago a group of our colleagues and the department head set out from the Rez. As far as anyone knew, it was standard academic research, nothing particularly groundbreaking, as is unfortunately usually the case. That¡¯s a general problem in academia, you see, the tendency for bland ideas rise to the top.¡±


    While he talked, Vy reached into her bag and pulled out a small leather-bound book and a writing utensil. She turned past the last used page in the book and began to write. ¡°How many in total?¡±


    Elliot hesitated, mouth agape. Vy could tell he had trouble switching gears. ¡°Um, five total, counting your for-hire friend. . . .¡±


    ¡°Not my friend,¡± she said without looking up from her book. ¡°Names?¡±


    Once more, Elliot hesitated and Sam spoke up for him. ¡°Real, or their avatar names?¡±


    Vy¡¯s eyes raised to meet Sam¡¯s. ¡°Do you imagine that Mr. and Mrs. NPC twelve-generations-a-peasant are going to know names like Izzy or Buddy? Avatars, please. Did they take on character classes? If so, I¡¯ll take those, too.¡±


    Elliot gulped; you could almost see the gears in his head grinding to a halt and switching direction. ¡°Yeah, okay: the first is Ricter Von Grimblade, a soldier; real name¡ª¡±


    ¡°Irrelevant. If he¡¯s Ricter in the Iron, he¡¯s Ricter to me.¡± While Vy jotted down the information, Elliot glanced around at the others as if for assistance. Paul upturned his palms in front of him as if to say, ¡°This is your cross to bear, bro.¡±


    Elliot coughed. ¡°Uh, next is Vaeri Fenlar, an elf ranger. Then there¡¯s Ealwulf, a nightblade. The department head goes by Axshn the Illusician, and he¡¯s a¡ª¡±


    Vy moved her pen back to the previous names, where she began to make additional notes. ¡°¡ªA summoner, yeah I kind of guessed that. Let¡¯s see: a soldier, a ranger, a thief and a summoner. So I take it then that the nature of the research was to test the NPC¡¯s reaction to outlaws. Am I right?¡± Her pen hesitated awaiting the table¡¯s confirmation of that suspicion, but when no answer came she looked up from her book to find four blank stares. She cocked her head, reciting from memory lore old as (virtual) time:


    "¡®A soldier swings and strikes for thee;


    a ranger fast and elven be;


    the thief, a blade of night does lurk;


    shadows growing in the hearth;


    if you but hear the summoner¡¯s tongue;


    the Forbidden Ones this night have come.¡¯¡±


    She had figured that would jog their memory; however, upon finishing the poem, the group¡¯s stares were no less blank than they had been. Vy closed her book and leaned forward to peer at them across the table. ¡°You are aware of the quest line ¡®Dusk of the Forbidden Ones,¡¯ are you not? I mean, it¡¯s only the most consistent legend among NPCs across all six continents of the Aeryn; even your lowly level-1 Iremouthian knows you don¡¯t party up as a S-R-T-S unless you¡¯re ready to have a target drawn on your back.¡±


    Another round of stares and Vy could hardly contain her frustrations. ¡°Wait a minute, you have journeyed to the Aeryn, right? Right? Lambert, did I not overhear you saying that we would need to replicate the missing group¡¯s original experiment to a T? Are you telling me that I¡¯m escorting a team of neophytes across the Hell¡¯s Mouth, a team wired directly into the Rez, and add to that they being Forbidden Ones . . . ?¡± She had never been so unprofessional with clients before¡ªbut with this kind of blatant ignorance, she was willing to break her streak.


    Keying off of her, the music began to become more aggressive. She picked up her glass and banged it on the table, splashing beer across the piles of documents scattered about. ¡°Hello?¡±


    With a long gulp, Elliot was the first to pipe up. ¡°We¡¯re only first years. The program doesn¡¯t typically approve of excursions until your second or third.¡±


    Vy yanked the knitted cap off her head and wrung it in her hands. ¡°So that¡¯s a ¡®yes¡¯ then? Lambert? Sam? Za?¡±


    The three nearly jumped up at the sound of their names called. They quickly exchanged glances. Thumping all around, the melody of the music began to turn.


    ¡°The first year is primarily theoretical work,¡± said Sam, treading lightly. But this only paved the way for Za to break that demure disposition of hers.


    ¡°They¡¯ve been out of contact for three days. Someone had to do something!¡± she said, exasperated.


    As she did on the car ride up, Vy closed her eyes and focused on the rhythm of her breath. One. Two. Three. She opened her eyes again: Nope, still mad as fire. She lay her cap on the table, smoothing it out with her palm in an attempt to compose herself. Then she turned to face Lambert, who now removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses on his shirt. The music began to calm again; breathe.


    ¡°We¡¯re just going to have to find another way,¡± Vy said at last, nodding confidently to herself. ¡°Wired into the Rez, we¡¯re talking about real consequences here. We¡¯ll just . . . take to the forests of Beornwy. We can bypass the Mouth that way. It¡¯s the long way around, but as long as you¡¯re not Forbidden Ones we should be able to keep encounters to a minimum. You know, there¡¯s a quiet little hamlet just north of Sige. They sell an elixir there that can increase your movement speed by¡ª¡± She was concentrating so hard that she¡¯d practically ironed her knitted cap flat. But she had just about worked everything out in her head when Sam threw up her hands.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to tell her.¡±


    Lambert tried to discreetly shush her, but Elliot waved away the attempt. ¡°There¡¯s no use hiding it anymore.¡±


    Vy¡¯s hands stopped. She looked up. ¡°No use hiding what?¡±


    Sam leaned into the table, turning her face down as if disclosing a secret. She spoke low as she could over the music. ¡°These ¡®Forbidden Ones¡¯ as you call them. We have to be them. That is the experiment.¡±


    ---


    Excited to know more before next week''s chapter? Well, be sure to check out the first book in the I, Speedrunner series, The Infinite Lawman, available now on Amazon</a>. While not a part of the series,Party Member for Hire takes place in the same universe--albeit some years before the events of The Infinite Lawman.


    Thank you so very much for reading!!! See you next week :)

 Chapter 4

    ¡°Alright, we¡¯re alone. You can drop the ¡®secret agent¡¯ routine now.¡±


    Vy leaned against the back door of the I/O Tavern, arms crossed and gaze leveled at the graduate students standing before her on the outside loading dock. It had begun to snow again; already the city was falling quiet beneath a blanket of fresh powder. Above the bulky concrete buildings opposite the I/O, Reztown¡¯s uplink pillar loomed metallic white against the mute gray dark.


    Vy sent a breath like a knife into the air. ¡°So? Spill it. I am literally freezing to death in suspense here.¡±


    Sam Brey, the group¡¯s glitch biologist, was the first to begin speaking. ¡°It is our belief that, beyond the perception of the expedition being standard academic research, that Professor Dorman¡ªthat is to say Axshn the Illusician¡ªhad in fact found a way to . . . insert code into the simulation system.¡±


    Vy blew another knife, thinner and sharper this time. ¡°You mean he hacked the Cog?¡±


    An air of hesitation loomed in Sam¡¯s expression. ¡°In short: Yes.¡± She glanced at the others for backup and they each in their own way confirmed her statement. ¡°We¡¯d all heard rumors, sure, but not even his department really knew what the professor and his team were up to, even after their field reports began to stream in. However, techthropologists predominately work in concepts and the relationship of parts; they don¡¯t posses the technical know-how to see the broad picture. But when the group went missing, Elliot brought the reports to me¡ªand I did see it. The S-R-T-S arrangement of the character classes, used in conjunction with an as-of-yet undetermined additional variable, let the users channel information into the low-level memory of the Incognita. Based on that, I began to surmise that the true goal of the expedition was to utilize this flaw to propagate and execute custom code across the . . .¡±


    The more she spoke, the more Sam seemed put off by her own words, as if in Vy¡¯s fixed gaze was a mirror now being turned around on her. She sent a hand to push a lock of red hair behind her ear. Lambert took the opportunity to elaborate: ¡°It¡¯s a buffer overflow attack basically; one of the oldest hacks in the book. A system¡¯s memory is allocated to individual pockets known as buffers. By forcing more data into a buffer than it can handle, the information overflows into the next buffer down the line, overwriting whatever was already there and replacing it with executable code. It¡¯s the exact method Robert Tappan Morris used in the 1980s to infect thousands of computers across the early-era network.¡±


    It was at this point that Lambert noticed the others looking at him. ¡°Hey, hate the algorithm, not the algoarchaeologist. I¡¯m just answering the woman¡¯s question. Point is, the S-R-T-S arrangement appears to set up the flow of information across the Cog¡¯s memory sectors so that, under the right conditions, data can be transferred over into another buffer.¡±


    ¡°What are the right conditions?¡± asked Vy, that scowl of hers now momentarily softened.


    Lambert shrugged. ¡°Beats me. Truth is, the exploit shouldn¡¯t even work. The A.I. is no 20th-century artifact, in the hundred years since the Morris Worm memory layout randomization has pretty much eradicated buffer overflows. And yet it does. Either someone has hacked the Cog previously to accept overflows, or the AI itself is allowing it.¡±


    ¡°So which do you think it is, interloper or AI?¡±


    Lambert shrugged again, more deliberately this time. ¡°Again: Beats me.¡±


    Leaving her post at the back door, Vy walked straight through the center of the students to stand at the edge of the loading dock. She looked up at the steely gray sky thinking, then did an about-face in the fresh snow. ¡°Okay, so let me see if I am understanding you correctly: The Forbidden One arrangement forces the Iron into some kind of error state wherein the user can execute data. An act that just so happens to be one of the primary restrictions of the Articles of SiMBIOSIS. Is that right? Why would anybody be so stupid as to do that?¡±


    Elliot spoke matter-of-factly. ¡°Publish or perish.¡±


    ¡°Publish or perish¡ªthat¡¯s your answer?¡±


    He tread lightly. ¡°Essentially, yes. The Incognita might be a revolutionary new system, but academia is moving fast. If you want to make a mark, you have to be willing to¡ª¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°¡ªTo completely shatter the rules? Pull off a completely illegal stunt in an attempt to throw it in everybody else¡¯s faces? If I¡¯ve got this straight, Professor Dorman¡ªnow you¡¯ve got me doing it¡ªI mean Axshn¡¯s experiment is to run a program inside the Iron. . . . In order to what, mine data for a project? To insert some kind of meter into the code?¡±


    Sam, her confidence having returned to her in the interim, spoke next: ¡°Nobody claims to know the nature of the code that he and the students are using. We only believe that, whatever the code is, it¡¯s working.¡±


    Vy cocked her head in incredulity. ¡°Define ¡®worked.¡¯ I¡¯d use a different definition personally: committed high treason against the Pillar in order to stake his claim on a discipline. No wonder the ¡®secret agent¡¯ routine you¡¯ve got going on here; your colleagues pretty much put themselves in the pot and set it to boil too. And the fact that you tried to keep it from me so that I would go along with this . . . this . . .¡±


    But before she could finish, Elliot quickly set to smoothing things over. ¡°¡ªWill you?¡±


    That was the billion-dollar question, wasn¡¯t it? To assist or not to assist. On one hand, this was a made bed that the party in question ought lay in; on the other, Vy had spent more time solving other people¡¯s problems in the last three years than most people did in their entire lifetimes. By the numbers alone she had rescued 651 damsels in distress, 139 fellows of the same, retrieved 4,000 amulets of various significance from this or that maw of doom, defended twelve times over the free people of Myrhgard, and put sword steel to the hearts of a hundred different would-be chaos bringers. And every single one of them was a struggle meant for someone else. One might say she was classically trained in the art of fixing other people¡¯s problems.


    Elliot smirked a little on one side of his mouth. ¡°Vivian Thornheart¡ªwill you still be our party member for hire?¡±


    Vy looked at the four of them, their expressions even in the biting cold suffused with a enduring innocence¡ªif not a foolish one. ¡°Oh hell, what choice do I have? Yes¡±¡ªand she jabbed a finger in the students¡¯ direction¡ª¡°but I don¡¯t have to like it.¡± Point made. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, Vy looked first at her own feet, then up at the metallic white of the pillar in the distance. She thought long and hard.


    After a while, she spoke again. ¡°Okay, so let¡¯s get the particulars straight. Your colleagues, I assume they had the proper levels for the S-R-T-S arrangement? They¡¯d have to, given Edston Brinvar¡¯s involvement¡ªas their party member for hire, he would have had the same issues as me.¡±


    For the first time since they¡¯d come outside, Za spoke up. ¡°That is correct. I accessed the network this afternoon to pull their character data.¡±


    Vy¡¯s attitude perked up a bit. ¡°That¡¯s some good news. That means that there was little chance they didn¡¯t leave a clear trail from town to town. High-level Forbidden Ones can hardly order an ale without some somebody¡ªNPC or player¡ªdeciding to approach them. It wouldn¡¯t be possible for the group to have traveled far between instances of their presence being noted. Or attacked. Or what have you. So: tomorrow morning we arrive in the Iremouth, we search out clues¡ªwe pray like hell that we don¡¯t find ourselves hunted down like dogs¡ªand we trace the missing party¡¯s movements all the way to their present whereabouts.¡±


    ¡°Is it possible that it¡¯s merely a coincidence,¡± said Za, speaking this time with a sort of lingering curiosity, as if there had been something on her mind this whole while, ¡°that the flaw of the S-R-T-S arrangement and the lore of the Forbidden Ones coincide as they do? If the arrangement is as fraught with danger as you say, and the lore generated by the AI itself, it would make sense that the system itself is aware of the flaw, correct?¡±


    ¡°Aware or actively flaunting it,¡± said Lambert with a huff.


    Good points all, but Vy had bigger fish to fry. ¡°Until I see otherwise I¡¯m going to go with coincidence. Either way, it does us no good to stand around conjecturing about such things. Instead I have a more pertinent question: What was your plan on getting into the Rez? They don¡¯t just let anybody connect directly; you¡¯d have to have a good alibi.¡±


    Sam was breathing into her own hands, lifting her face from time to time to speak over the cup of them. ¡°That we do. We are using special-order approvals from the university.¡±


    Vy saw right through that. ¡°And by ¡®special-order¡¯ you mean ¡®forged,¡¯ right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, forged documents.¡±


    Vy made fists with her hands again and again to warm them, though she herself didn¡¯t seem mad at all at this point. ¡°You people are really terrible at disclosing information, you know that? Is there anything else I need to know, like how one of you is maybe a wanted fugitive, or perhaps that you are all Archivists eluding capture?¡± She was, of course, half joking¡ªand just half, no more, no less.


    An eyebrow raised behind his thick glasses, Lambert lifted a hand high. ¡°I¡¯m a little bloated, if that¡¯s of assistance.¡±


    ¡°You know, Lambert,¡± she said, heading past them to return to the back door, ¡°before this is over you might just come to wish that was your only status effect. Let¡¯s move.¡±


    ---


    Excited to know more before next week''s chapter? Well, be sure to check out the first book in the I, Speedrunner series, The Infinite Lawman, available now on Amazon</a>. While not a part of the series,Party Member for Hire takes place in the same universe--albeit some years before the events of The Infinite Lawman.


    Thank you so very much for reading!!! See you next week :)

 Chapter 5

    It was a ten-minute¡¯s walk from the frozen front steps of the I/O Tavern to the Department of Incognita Science, this through the hushed snowfall of campus. All the while, two thoughts smoldered at the back of Vy¡¯s mind. The first was her better judgment. Was all this¡ªthe contract, the accomplices, the conditions¡ªa mistake? You bet your level-11 fangsword it was; they might as well have been putting their necks in the maw of a bone boar. Yet though that doubt stewed beneath Vy¡¯s knitted cap, it did so in conflict with a second consideration: the hammered-steel sturdiness of her word, with which she had agreed to be the students¡¯ party member for hire. Ascend the steepest of mountain fortresses, fling open the most remote of chests, and you won¡¯t find even a bad replacement for a person¡¯s word.


    It was the one loot you couldn¡¯t find anywhere but in yourself.


    A welcome warmth and several maglock doors later, the five of them arrived at their destination within the Department of Incognita Science, the Laboratory for Advanced Neural Interfaces. LANI for short. The facility was the University of Reformed Massachusetts¡¯ interdepartmental laboratory for the study of and experimentation on the myriad systems of the Incognita. Though usually populated by any number of brilliant minds, in recent weeks the lab¡¯s bustling attendance had dropped to an all-time low, on account of the its overseer¡ªDr. Ritcard Dorman, AKA Axshn the Illusician¡ªbeing ¡°unavailable¡± to approve new slots.


    Good news for our would-be adventurers, as this meant the facility was the perfect place for they and their for-hire advisor to hash out any last-minute details of their already hurriedly put-together plan. As the hours passed, the laboratory sensors darkened the automatic lights one by one, until there was only the glow of the break room¡¯s lights through the gas-frosted window that looked into the lab proper. From time to time, these automated lights would flicker on and fade once more as graduate student after graduate student left to catch what hours of sleep they could. Until at last there was only Vy and Elliot occupying the small back room¡ªand of those two only one was going anywhere at all.


    ¡°You know, we can find you an actual bed,¡± Elliot said, his expression a cross between concern and utter exhaustion. He stopped partway through the break-room door to turn and face her as he left.


    By this point, Vy had dragged three plush-bottom chairs into a line in front of the cluttered counter, crushed cans and envirtualization manuals, and she was now working on the fourth. ¡°This is fine,¡± she said, without any discernable emotion. She was beat.


    ¡°You sure?¡± Elliot said, mustering up a sluggish empathy.


    Her impromptu bed now made, Vy stopped to look back over her shoulder. There in the artificial light, a hint of warmth flashed across her face. ¡°Thank you, really, but this will do just fine. Will you get the light?¡±


    He did, and soon thereafter took leave of the laboratory. As Vy lay across the chairs in the dark she watched the frosted obscurity of the observation window go from gray to light silver to gray again as Elliot¡¯s path crossed the sensors. Reaching back on the counter behind her, she felt for the remote, then pushed the button that controlled the window. In a reverse fog, the glass went clear from the outer boundaries in, to reveal on the other side the dim glow of instruments and simulation indicators. From the light of all of them combined, she could just make out the shape of the laboratory equipment. Of especial interest to her drifting-away mind was the pi¨¨ce de r¨¦sistance of the LANI¡¯s high-tech offerings: a single EVC (EnVirtualization Chamber), AKA a ¡°dream pod.¡±


    The device itself was a four-by-seven-foot capsule secured to the floor plates by a fully articulating arm. This allowed the unit to be positioned vertically, horizontally, or any degree in between. Not that the pod¡¯s passenger would be much aware of it, of course¡ªin fact, an EVC was designed precisely to avoid its passenger being aware of anything at all outside of the virtual world. It was meant to be the perfect 1:1 experience. Even now, on the cusp of sleep, Vy could rattle off a list of features that advanced envirtualization units offered over the standard at-home model: inner-ear recalibration, variable pressurization, micro-fluctuating temperature control, humidity and air flow governance, liquid-haptic feedback, waste control. . . . The list went on and on and on.


    For the average envirt, envirtualization was not much different than watching a television program. No matter how compelling the content or alluring the narrative, you could still just walk away. Switch off. Unvirt. Why would one do so? Well, while a leg of wildlamb virtually ingested might persuade the brain into curbing its hunger an hour or two, it didn¡¯t take long for the human body to wise up. Even if a person had the foresight to eat and drink prior to envirtualization, sooner or later the bodily functions would come a-calling. And even beyond these two factors, starving and soiled, eventually you would have to sleep. The divide between the two worlds was insurmountable. No matter how much you might have adored the Incognita, you were forever married to reality through your biological needs.


    Unless, of course, you had access to an EnVirtualization Chamber. And by access it was meant lots and lots of money.


    Vy herself had only once been lucky enough to try an EVC, and even then it was only for a few hours. The occasion had been part of a high-level contract around the end of her first year as a party member for hire. At this point in her career, her reputation didn¡¯t yet command much attention, nor did her experience much pay. But what she did offer was a good job done cheap¡ªand for some clients, that was all the r¨¦sum¨¦ one needed.


    ¡°Should be a real easy ¡®tract for a professional like you. A real piece of pie. Take on the guise of a fair maiden¡ªfair-enough anyway. Lie in wait at the Festival of the Somber Solstice. Shadow the lord of Blackfawn Manor. Then, right as he is among all his pretty little patrons, his squealing, fawning, giggling little dewflowers . . . you zero-sum the miserable bastard.¡±


    All this had been conveyed by a drone buzzing around her head as she browsed aisle to aisle the crummy, foul-smelling shop. The client himself was safe and secure behind three inches of blast glass at the back, an oily-skinned, round-faced man who ran a little five-and-grand just outside of the City Centralis. He was an info merchant by the name of Gorge Govas. The whole while he explained the gig, he didn¡¯t look up once from his position on the other side of the glass, where he sat digging at one of his toenails with the sharp end of a neuro-ROM tool.


    Vy thumbed through the wares about midway up a shelf, half-working EIU augments and suspect info cards. She picked up a card and inspected it, then plopped it back from whence it came.


    ¡°And where willyoube during this little escapade?¡±


    The drone spun around to get a better look at her. Projected in front of the device was a small version of the face that watched her from the back of the shop. In both places, the info merchant flashed a sick-looking grin, a row of sharp teeth tinted yellow. ¡°Well . . . nobody ever said ¡®party member for hire¡¯ had to be so literal.¡±


    So it was an assassination mission. Remove the target from the (virtual) world; open up his Incognita assets to the public; watch it all get snatched up in an EIU feeding frenzy. And who oh who had shelf after shelf of Emulated Intelligence Units on discount? Why, Gorge Govas coincidentally. On any other day, Vy might have rejected the contact on principle alone¡ªthough the target was, let¡¯s be frank, nothing more than an avatar in a computer-generated virtual reality, the fact remained that anyone she could feasibly assassinate she could just as feasibly turn into a client. And this particular hypothetical client¡ªGorge Govas¡¯ real-world rival Oldr Carien, AKA ¡°Elfred Pergirue¡±¡ªwould make a heck of a good one.


    But she could name an even better heck of a good one: cash money up front and now.


    Moral quandaries have been settled for less. With a swipe of her hand, Vy gave the drone-projected contract the old dotted-line treatment, and five minutes later she was standing before Gorge Govas¡¯ own personal EVC. The unit was contained inside a cramped storage room to the right of the blast glass. Though normally the kind of costly equipment that one kept polished and clean, the stowed-away envirtualization chamber had been stripped down to its bare essentials. It looked like it had been pulled from the bottom of a junk pile.


    Ah, but money was money was money. So, without a word futher, she climbed inside the machine. When she opened her eyes again, she was staring at a moonlight sky. Above her, branches brushed at the night like the strokes of an artist¡¯s instrument. The air crackled with life all around, and she could taste the deep forest smell carried on the breeze. And all this a change balanced between breathing in and out a single instance, from the stale air of the store room to the green air of the Aeryn. She¡¯d never had a transition so smooth. Had she been classed as a bard, she would have used the kinds of words you saw in the ancient scripts of Ylmoth, syllables of poetry and power. Instead she simply blinked away the new world and said: ¡°Time to get to work.¡±


    Before she could even fully rise to her feet there in the soft needles of the forest copse, she ascertained her current position as being deep in the forests of Devieux, about six miles from the sleepy hamlet of Moonmire. This merely based off a glance at the West Sword, the go-to star formation for navigation. By the time she had risen fully¡ªto stand in a silken, dark blue cloak, cinched at the waist¡ªshe had caught a glimpse of Moonmire¡¯s torches in the night. And by that first step forward, she had used both details to orient her point of travel further toward the Devieux interior, where she would find Blackfawn Manor. She¡¯d also searched her garments for a weapon. What she found buried deep in the folds of the cloak¡¯s underlying tunics was a silver-hilted knife about as long as her hand.


    She could work with that.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    By the time she reached the back perimeter of Blackfawn Manor, the Festival of the Somber Solstice was already in full swing. Falling from the open windows of the squat, stone manor, gentle music could be heard, sawing strings and harps plucking jovially at the crisp air. Vy waited in the shadow of the night watching the back balcony of the manor, where a few guards drank and sang and generally presented no great difficulty at all.


    While they reveled, she scaled the ledges and wrought-iron fixtures to arrive inside one of the quieter windows¡ªa musty, dimly lit library, shelved floor to ceiling with silent tomes and watched over only by the occasional piece of period-appropriate art, lords and armies dosed in ultramarine blue and surrounded by stamped gold. It was there that she ditched that dark cloak she had spawned with, to exit wearing the outfit beneath: a chartreuse layering of tunics hemmed with light gold. Her hair, normally dented into shape by a perpetual case of helm hair, was kept pearly and partially obscured beneath a squarish veil.


    Making her way down the hall outside the library, she soon slipped behind a group of ladies all dressed as ladylike as she. They were like a gaggle of birds¡ªshrill and noisy and organized around a central ¡°goose,¡± a dark-haired maiden who would turn from time to time to address them.


    ¡°Oh would you just look at Lady Nuvireux,¡± she said in one of these sudden turns, ¡°that ghastly wimple of hers! Do you see?¡± She made a show of hiding-but-not-hiding her words behind a raised hand.


    ¡°Do I?¡± said another, positively glowing in her mean-spiritedness. ¡°She looks as if she had stolen it from the mouth of some wilderly beast, a . . . a . . . moorwolf, or a ghastghoul.¡±


    Vy found herself speaking without thinking. ¡°Nah, not a ghastghoul,¡± she interrupted, ¡°a ghast will eat clothing and meat and all in one gulp. I¡¯d say more of a razorvirgin probably, they keep their clothing as part of their curse . . .¡± Because of course the ladylikest trait of all was knowing the distinguishing characteristics and predatory habits of southwild monsters. . . .


    The gaggle turned to face her, a look of apprehension flat across their faces. Vy forced a smile and they sneered but soon returned their attentions back to the not-them, to those who dared to differ from themselves. But at least they had turned their attentions away from Vy. Her ¡°ruse,¡± if you could call it that, was enough to assuage any suspicions of her sudden arrival, and she was able to use the cover to follow the ladies down into the foyer and out into the main hall. So it was infiltration ¨C one, friendship ¨C zilch.


    But still: infiltration ¨C one.


    Breaking off from the gaggle, Vy ventured into the manor¡¯s great hall¡ªor rather, to the edge of the balcony that overlooked such. Ahead of her past the railing, a long hall strung with large glinting chandeliers, the largest of which was hung over an impromptu dance below. Of those people dancing (as well as others in attendance, who stood idly by or engaged in conversation), garments of all sorts, doublets and tunics and flowing purple dresses. And very few of them NPCs from the looks of it.


    Vy had gotten to the point that she could routinely spot the NPCs in a given crowd. Though the AI that powered them did so with the awesome power of envirt-based analysis, artificial behaviors hadn¡¯t yet progressed to the point of total invisibility. In particular she had her eye on the cocky fellow now crossing the bustling floor below, striding really, with a emphatic flourish at the end of each movement from one side of the hall to the next. There was no way he was human; his movements were a cold and calculated grand. Each glide and bow and ostentatious curtsey. It was like watching the automaton servants in the City¡¯s shopping district. He preened and dance-led like a machine constructed for such. He was a great amusement to those dozens upon dozens of people gathered, laughing and drinking and waiting for the Lord of Blackfawn to appear and celebrate them during his annual solstice speech.


    Vy, too, was awaiting the Lord¡¯s arrival¡ªthough for quite a different reason altogether. And while she wait, scanning the great hall with a somewhat downcast gaze, a large drunk man lumbered by, sloshing beer from the copper flagon he carried in one hand. She wouldn¡¯t have noticed him at all, except that as he passed by he drunkenly attempted to set his flagon on the railing of the balcony¡ªand did so at a foot¡¯s length less than was actually needed. Instinctively, Vy reached out and grabbed the vessel, fast as she might have a snatched an arrow from a quiver and nocked it. Just as quickly as she had seized the flagon, she swung it up to set on the balcony as the man had intended. He didn¡¯t even seem to notice. With little more than a grumble from his bearded mouth, the drunken man stumbled onward, and Vy focused once again on the crowd below.


    She had forgotten the event entirely when a man¡¯s voice, another man¡¯s voice, spoke into her ear.


    ¡°You should drink up,¡± he said, in a deep tone that made her muscles tense. Vy glanced over her left shoulder to note the figure from which the voice emanated, a tall, dark-haired man with a look of arrogant approval across his face. He was dressed in black garments cut close to the form of his body, shoulders and chest, a distinctly militaristic look.


    ¡°Your client, after all, will want to know that his time and money went toward something, if not an assassination.¡±


    She¡¯d been made, that much was clear. Though she had been previously frozen by his words, she now felt her pace quicken. She could move like lightning if she needed to. But did she need to? And what would she do anyway, kill this complete stranger, then jump down from the balcony into the crowd and hope Elfred Pergirue was nearby and conspicuous? Actually it didn¡¯t sound half bad; she was over this whole ¡°fair maiden¡± act anyway. And the more she thought about it, the closer her right hand moved toward that silver-hilt blade stowed away in her tunic. . . .


    ¡°For whatever do you search?¡± the man said with a kind of mock attentiveness, leaning with one arm against the railing. It was then that he produced from the folds of his dark clothing the very blade for which she now groped. He flashed a smile sharp as the blade itself. ¡°Don¡¯t let my garb fool you. I¡¯m classed as a thief.¡±


    ¡°But are you so certain I work alone?¡± She cut her eyes at him, flashed teeth from one side of her mouth.


    ¡°Mmm,¡± he said, returning the blade to its place in his garments, ¡°No, I don¡¯t believe that for one moment. You, my lady, are a lone moorwolf if I ever saw one.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know me,¡± she said with a huff.


    She was absolutely right, of course. But one didn¡¯t have to know her to know that character classes skewed toward basic personality types. The magic classes¡ªthe illiusionist, the dark mage¡ªthey attracted people obsessed with their own internal might, the academic or the power-hungry; the fighter classes attracted those on the other end of the spectrum, those who wished to be externally powerful, or in leading others to appear so; the rogue classes¡ªthe thief among them¡ªappealed to those who tended to keep to themselves, who rather watch from the shadows, then strike when least suspected.


    Like this man here, Vy too was a rogue. So by knowing himself the man knew her about as well as one could.


    Down below, an event was occurring. The doors at the far end of the great hall had opened to admit a number of new patrons, tightly formed into a cluster. At the front of this cluster was none other than Elfred Pergirue. He was a thin, lanky man, with an air about him that simply drew people in, like a beloved statue or a fine painting. Except Elfred was no inanimate item¡ªhe was about as animate as they came, with a warm, friendly smile that seemed to leap from his face to yours. He was, in Vy¡¯s opinion, the very last person you¡¯d want to kill. You¡¯d have to be pretty low to want that removed from the virtual world.


    ¡°Edston,¡± the man said finally.


    Vy had been concentrating so hard she¡¯d been scowling. ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Edston Brinvar,¡± the man said again. ¡°I am Lord Pergirue¡¯s for-hire.¡±


    She was only half listening. She was watching Elfred as he moved across the room. It was a real treat to see a (virtual) fellow such as he; the Iron was so bogged down with opportunists and two-faced weasels it was almost like she was witnessing a new character class altogether¡ªthe simply decent person. Featured skills: not being a complete asshole.


    In the corner of her eye, she saw Edston smile again, warmer now. ¡°Oh don¡¯t be so steely,¡± he chided her, ¡°I should frankly be the admonished one here. It was you, after all, who assumed that for-hire security¡ªof which I am in charge¡ªwould be so light as to need nothing more than a petty blade. Is this . . . is this even enchanted?¡± He patted the blade where it lay beneath his clothes, laughing lightly to himself.


    ¡°You know,¡± he continued, now turning away from her to face the crowd below, ¡°Lord Pergirue¡¯s not a bad fellow at all. I don¡¯t just mean that he pays well. Out of all the avatars I¡¯ve protected, he is the only one I¡¯d consider doing so for . . . reduced price. Half cost maybe. The rest of the clients I work for in the Aeryn, upworld I wouldn¡¯t even give them the time of day. But Elfred is not a bad fellow.¡± He paused. ¡°He¡¯s not a bad employer either.¡±


    It was then that Vy did something unexpected. She demurred. ¡°Is that so?¡±


    ¡°It is.¡±


    The two were quiet for a moment. Soon, the band began to play a new tune and those down below began to dance. After a while, Edston spoke. ¡°Well, I ask you, my lady . . .¡± he paused and cut his eyes her direction.


    ¡°Thornheart.¡±


    ¡°. . . Lady Thornheart,¡± he said as if he¡¯d known all along, ¡°what, pray tell, is your current agility level?¡±


    ¡°High enough for any maneuver you can come up with, I assure you.¡±


    Edston took Vy¡¯s hand. ¡°Oh really?¡± And just like that, he swept her from the railing and into the crowd gathered at the top of the stairs leading down into the great hall proper. From step to step the two went, dancing with such eloquence that even the bearded drunk now collapsed at the bottom of the stairs looked up from his stupor. Vy and Edston twirled through the gathered people, first in a calculated Basse Dance, slow and low in movement, then in a few glides crossed from one end of the crowd to the next. Next came the flourish, as Edston tipped Vy and they both looked up so as to reveal their faces to the upper balconies. Then upright the two were once more, to return to the comfortable monotony of a methodical circular dance.


    A series of claps from the crowd. In the midst of all that movement of the two touching down upon the great hall¡¯s bottom floor, Vy let loose a smile. It was an in-the-moment kind of thing, not on purpose. As she and Edston moved through the gathered people¡ªdozens upon dozens now, twirling, moving¡ªshe couldn¡¯t help but laugh. Maybe it was few and far between, but there was fun to be had in a crowd. She just had to be a little more receptive to it.


    ¡°Edston, Edston, Edston, my boy!¡± cried Elfred Pergirue from the swirl of bodies dancing in the center of the great hall. The man holding tight to Vy¡¯s hand swung her so that her other sliced the air to land in the palm of Elfred¡¯s, who leaned forward and kissed the hand with a kind and not unwholesome grin. ¡°And who is this lady of yours?¡± he said loud over the din of the room.


    ¡°You mean,¡± she said with a bit of bite, ¡°who is this gentleman of mine?¡±


    And with that, Vy spun Edston away from her¡ªa deliberate, expressive action, as Elfred stood looking on and laughing and clapping. He truly seemed as friendly as Edston had said; so friendly, in fact, that as Vy finished her spin to stand on the edge of the circle of dancers, she almost felt bad to remove that reacquired blade from the nape of her neck, where she¡¯d hidden it just moments before. She felt bad about Edston too, who having twirled to the other side of the great hall stood with his expression reflecting the realization settling in on him like moved earth. And among these feel-bads, there was what she felt for the unaware crowd, too, who had gathered alongside Elfred underneath the glinting center chandelier¡ªthe far-flung support rope of which Vy, with a level of accuracy that would make your average envirt swoon, severed.


    Down, down went the chandelier, that crystal colossus plummeting to the floor below. Sure, she liked Edston. He had a kind of warm, boyish charm that made even that heart of hers long to smile.


    But, you see, she¡¯d given her word¡ªand she wasn¡¯t about to respec now.