Entering the Weave

Spokes led them through the tunnels with the accomplished ease of one who was born to live in cyberspace. The powerful way in which she controlled her wheelchair was nothing compared with the fluid, efficient movements she performed online. She was like a fish gliding along in front of them. Bandicoot was next, and he had a different sort of agility, quick and nervous just like a monkey in the wild. Then stomped DoomLord with as much subtlety as a rhinoceros that has just been made a Sergeant Major and then came Josh. Michael followed behind, flitting around like a firefly, as gracefully agile as Spokes, but more flamboyant, as if moving normally was boring.

The tunnels became darker and the images that adorned the walls displayed less and less until it was more usual to see a blank screen than one with an image. Josh got the impression that this area was not travelled through very often. The side tunnels they passed were dark and gloomy and down one Josh thought he saw many red eyes staring back at him.

The owners of these eyes became bolder as time went on. They ventured closer to the main passageway and Josh began to make out hairy limbs and drooling maws. He hurried on, trying to keep as close as possible to the reassuringly warrior-like DoomLord.

His imagination was beginning to run away with him and so when something grabbed his shoulder, bringing him to a sudden stop he screamed. He tried to thrash away from his assailant but the grip was too strong.

“Stop struggling. I don’t have much time.” Glowing symbols surrounded him, and Geigerzalion’s pale, multi-layered avatar twisted him around. “I must give you something.”

Josh’s companions had stopped to wait for him.

“Is everything alright, Josh?” Spokes called. “Are we going too fast?”

“No, it’s Geigerzalion. He stopped me.”

Spokes and Bandicoot raced to his side. “He was here?”

“Yeah, he’s just…” There was no sign of Geigerzalion. “You didn’t see him?”

“There was something here.” Michael was standing with his nose in the air as if scenting something. “It is strange.”

Spokes was examining a device in her hand. “These are the same readings we get from the anomaly, Bandi.” She muttered. “Josh. Who is Geigerzalion?” Her face was severe.

“I told you, didn’t I? He’s a prisoner somewhere.”

“Yes, but who is he?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Josh.” Spokes was talking more gently now. “We’ve been monitoring something on the Internet for a few months now which has managed to evade all our techniques and traps. These readings show that your Geigerzalion is that anomaly.”

“He’s a friend. He’s trapped, probably like Toby.”

Spokes’ expression softened and there was sympathy in her voice. “I know all this is new to you, Josh and you haven’t had any time to assimilate everything that’s going on, but there is one fundamental thing that you must be aware of. Everything on the Internet is not necessarily what it seems to be. The Internet is the ultimate mask in fact. Nothing has to appear as it is in the real world and that goes for people as well as things.”

“I know, but if it hadn’t been for him, we would never have found Michael…”

“Just be careful Josh.” Spokes interrupted. “We’ve been surfing the Internet since the beginning and we’ve never seen anything like him.”

“We’d never seen anyone like Michael either before we met Josh.” Bandicoot pointed out.

Spokes looked at the monkey’s small, wrinkled face and smiled. “Yes. You’re right Bandi. I’m sorry Josh. Perhaps I’m just getting paranoid in my old age. Do you know what he wanted?”

“Not really. He said that he had to give me something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” But Josh was suddenly acutely aware of a small, spherical object that had appeared in his fist. “Hang on.” He opened his hand to reveal a cast-iron sphere, no bigger than a ping pong ball. Twisting runes were carved deeply into its surface. Spokes and Bandicoot peered at it.

“Do you know what this is, Michael?”

Michael extended a tentative finger to touch the ball, and a translucent, green glow appeared around it. He pulled his finger away quickly, as if he had been stung.

“I do not know. It is powerful.”

Bandicoot turned away. “Come on. The Morlags will get more courageous if we linger here.” Spokes eyed Josh for a second and then followed the monkey.

They all sped along the tunnels once more until suddenly the walls dissolved into an explosion of white light. Josh could feel himself falling and he lost his sense of forward and back and up and down.

And then the transition into Vienopolis was complete. Josh and his companions found themselves in a damp, dark cellar. A sliver of light from above pierced the darkness, and dimly illuminated the rest of the room. It was exactly the same as the room Josh, Toby and Rose had hidden from the marionettes.

“We can disguise ourselves with these robes.” Josh opened a nearby chest. “There are masks too.”

“DoomLord does not skulk behind the masks of peasants!” DoomLord’s voice was deep and booming.

“Just do as you’re told.” Spokes snapped at him.

“Of course. Sorry.”

They spent a few minutes checking each other’s disguises and practising their tottering walks, before creeping up the steps into the vast pillared chamber above. They circled around the entrance to the steps walking the jerky, wooden walk of the puppet people until Spokes was sure that they were alone and unobserved.

“Where is Toby being held?” She asked Michael.

“It is east from here. We need to pass through the city to get to it. It is not far, but it is dangerous. The streets we must pass through are wide and easily watched. He will be expecting us.”

“Expecting us? How?” Josh blurted out.

“He’s right, Josh.” Spokes said calmly. “He wouldn’t have taken Toby prisoner if he didn’t expect someone to come and rescue him. He would have just killed him.”

“Who does he expect? Me?”

“Probably. He may think you left voluntarily. He may envy that power and want it for himself.”

“But I was lucky. It was just a fluke.”

“He doesn’t know that. Besides, that might not be what he’s thinking at all.” She smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it Josh. We have one objective and that is to rescue Toby. Just focus on that.”

Josh nodded and they set off, still shambling along in case there were any unseen watchers.

Michael led the way. He was the least adept at mimicking the ungainly gait of the puppet people, as his natural fluidity of motion was so at odds with any kind of clumsiness. The rest of the group followed a few paces behind.

They came to the edge of the gigantic building and Josh could not help thinking how spectacular the towering domes and souring ramparts were. This was a graceful, beautiful city and he could almost feel it crying out against the bane that was corrupting it. He looked around at his friends and saw that they too were admiring the delicate urban splendour.

They went down the steps and Michael led them towards a boulevard as wide as a football pitch with statues and small stone huts running down the centre of it. When they reached its beginning, Josh could see that it lead straight to an immensely tall tower, which stretched like a slender finger towards the blood red sky. So high, in fact, that its top was wreathed in dark grey clouds.

Bandicoot saw the ragged shapes first. There weren’t many of them, and none of them were moving. The closest one was probably fifty metres away along the wide avenue. It was lying in a crumpled heap.

Spokes pulled them all back and instructed Bandicoot to go and investigate. The monkey skittered away while the others peered around the corner to watch him. He approached the still shape cautiously, always making sure he had an escape route. Josh could feel his heart thudding in his chest, waiting for the cloaked manikins to rise up and attack. It was almost too much to bear. He remembered their hard wooden fingers clutching at him and their rabid frenzy when they had destroyed one of their own for merely existing. Just as he felt panic begin to overwhelm him Bandicoot motioned for them to approach.

They crept stealthily up the street; the deadly silence of the city made them forget how they should have been walking. Bandicoot was poking through the remains of one of the puppet people. Its wooden frame had been smashed to splinters, and it’s head was nowhere to be found.

They left the dead puppet and gave a wide berth to the others that lay mangled in the street. Some powerful thing had destroyed every one of them.

“It seems someone has done our work for us.” DoomLord intoned.

“There are more than enough left.” Michael said. “This is the work of the Doge’s new cohorts. He is crueller than I thought. If he is an artificial intelligence himself then this makes him worse than a murderer.” Michael was physically upset by the destruction of these puppets and his avatar was shimmering.

They were hurrying now, but Josh wondered whether they were rushing away from their fears or towards them. Michael had produced his blazing sword from somewhere and DoomLord was carrying a preposterously huge double-edged battleaxe. All pretence of being marionettes had been forgotten.

When they were in sight of the base of the tower, they saw that it was not slender. Now they could see that it was constructed of massive iron rings placed perfectly on top of each other. The rings did not taper as they got higher, but bulged and pinched all the way up the tower until they were lost in the clouds. There were no gaps or windows in the upper rings, the only way in or out of the massive tower was an enormous gateway that yawned open like a lion’s mouth. There were shapes moving in the shadows.

“Is there another way into the tower?” Spokes asked Michael.

He shook his head sadly. “I followed the Doge and Toby to here. I tried to find a way to follow him, but this entrance is so well defended I would not have been able to gain access without fighting. I found no other entrances.”

“Then we must force our way in. Josh, you wait here. Stay hidden. You have no experience of this type of thing. If we fail you must try and get out of this Vrealm.” She turned to the others. “Bandicoot, can you make yourself bigger in this World?”

Bandicoot nodded and expanded to the size of an elephant.

“DoomLord. You know what to do. Michael, we don’t know your powers, but we are used to working as a team. If you can work around us, that would probably make sense.” Spokes waited for acknowledgement from everyone and then took a deep breath. Her eyes and hands started to smoulder and then burst into flame. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

As the four warriors walked towards the open maw of the tower six figures emerged to meet them.

Josh could see from his hiding place that they were ready for battle. They were humanoid in the loosest sense of the word. The shortest of them stood eight feet tall, and was almost as broad. They were all dressed as barbarian warriors, which was in keeping with the iron-ringed tower, and their bared torsos were covered with muscle and Celtic tattoos.

The two groups stopped perhaps five metres apart, and surveyed each other.

The largest of the barbarians was the first to speak.

“Is this the best you can do? The best the real world has to offer?” He sneered the word ‘real’.

“We are enough.” Spokes’ voice was quiet but sure. “We will give you one chance to step aside. If you do not we will be forced to disable you.”

The six barbarians bellowed with laughter. “Run along little girl. You are meddling with things that are beyond you. You cannot disable us; we are not some feeble machine intelligence. We are real.”

“Then you will be more inclined to withdraw as you must realise what is at stake.” Spokes replied coolly.

Josh wondered how she could stay so calm. The barbarians looked invincible.

Then it began. With a speed belying their huge bulk the barbarians leapt forward together and swung their fearsome axes with terrifying speed, but they all missed their targets. Bandicoot had rolled lithely out of the way, coming to his hands and feet a few yards away and facing his two attackers. DoomLord had met his adversaries head on and repelled their blows with his own considerable axe. Michael had shimmered into the air while his attacker had swung underneath him. Spokes had not only avoided the swift onslaught, she had felled the barbarian with a lance of fire from her burning hands. She left him writhing on the ground and turned to help Bandicoot.

Josh could barely keep up with what was happening. All the combatants moved inhumanly quickly. Bandicoot rolled and tumbled away from his attackers before striking back with his huge claws. DoomLord’s axe was a blur parrying one moment and swinging in to attack the next.

Soon the individual fights merged into one melee and kicked-up dust began to swirl about them. Josh could barely see anything. He started to creep forward to try and see more clearly, but as he moved from his hiding place he heard a throaty growl behind him. It was a sound no animal had ever made and he turned quickly and found himself face to face with a nightmare.

Josh had seen the Minotaur in books of Greek legends. In his imagination, however, he had embellished and expanded the bull-headed man to a monstrous degree. He imagined its whole body to be covered in thick coarse hair, except for where scars had been scrivened into its hide to form runes and its face was more human than any ordinary bull, although its hairy muzzle was elongated and it had terrible horns protruding from the side of its massive head.

And this creature towering before him looked as though it had been plucked directly from his mind. It stood easily twice as tall as a man, probably twice as tall as the huge barbarians fighting in the dust.

The Minotaur’s black eyes were staring directly at Josh and its protruding mouth was twisted into a fearsome smile that revealed huge, flat teeth.

“Man child. You are the one the master wants.”

The monster took a single step forward and moved ten feet closer. Josh was frozen by fear, but he heard a small voice in the back of his head whispering that he needed to move. Another step closer and the voice spoke again, this time louder and more urgently. It was enough. Josh’s muscles felt like water, but he found enough strength to stand upright and start running. He heard a deep, growling chuckle from behind him. “You cannot escape from the Minotaur.”

Josh ran blindly, not worrying about where he was going or what was ahead. All he could think about was the huge man-beast that was chasing him. He could feel the juddering footfalls getting closer and closer even though he was sprinting with lung bursting effort.

His foot suddenly collided with something on the ground and he looked down. He saw the blank staring face of one of the barbarians and found himself uncontrollably hurtling forward onto his hands and knees. He felt the dusty, cool stone of the street bite into his palms. His elbows hurt as well, but he scrambled onwards anyway trying to get away from the beast behind him.

He looked up and saw the entrance of the tower looming before him. He didn’t stop to think or change direction, he just ran on into the maw of the tower.

Spokes had been surprised when the barbarian had said that he was real. That didn’t make any sense. All the data they had on this Vrealm indicated that it was populated by artificial intelligences only. This was a game that had not been accessed for a long time.

She forced herself to concentrate on the combat. The dust was swirling unnaturally now, and she suspected that there was another opponent elsewhere watching them, someone or something that had more control and more power than these muscle-bound hulks.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw an axe slicing down towards her. She extended her firebrand hands and parried the blow, nudging the axe further than it should have gone and overbalancing the wielder. At the same time she span on her heel and lashed out with her other foot and felt it crunch into a barbarian’s nose. She heard a howl of pain and the barbarian jumped back out of reach again. She pressed her advantage and began to follow, but Bandicoot appeared next to her. He was breathing raggedly and seemed to be favouring his left paw. A deep gash was bleeding heavily from his side.

“Bandi. How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t feel my side.”

Michael glided past with his sword a shining blur in his hands. Two barbarians were being beaten back by his skill and speed.

“Retreat back to where Josh is, Bandi. This fight is nearly over.” She passed her burning palms over his wound. Bandicoot whimpered with the pain, but the bleeding had stopped when she took her hands away. “Go!”

Spokes leapt away and chased after the barbarian she had been fighting. A few moments later, the remaining barbarians had given up completely and ran off down the streets that led from the tower.

“DoomLord, Michael. Make sure they don’t come back.” Spokes pointed after them.

“Will you be okay here?” DoomLord asked.

“Yes. I’ll heal Bandicoot. Come back as soon as you can though. There will be more surprises within.”

Michael had already started the chase and DoomLord turned and broke into a run after him.

The dust storm stopped as soon as the last of the barbarians was out of sight. Spokes sighed and looked around. They had killed three of the barbarians, and she wondered what that would mean if they were real people logged onto this Vrealm. Would they have died in the real world? She had tried to warn them, and she was trying to save a young boy. Surely she was doing the right thing.

“Bandi? Is Josh okay?”

Bandicoot limped back to the battleground. His simian face looked sad. “He’s gone and there are some strange tracks in the dust. Something huge found him.”

Spokes and Bandicoot examined the tracks and tried to recreate what had happened. Josh had been crouching low behind the statue like she had told him and then started to creep forward. His tracks became further apart indicating that he had started to run. Alongside these they found other marks in the dust that seemed to be too big to be footprints although they certainly looked like bare feet, and the distance between the strides made it unfeasible that he was being chased by anything human.

They followed Josh’s trail over the dead barbarian where they saw that he had fallen over and scrambled back to his feet. The huge thing that was following him seemed to have stopped at that point as well and only continued when Josh was on his way again.

“Why would it stop?” Bandicoot asked

“It was herding him into the tower. Look.” Spokes pointed at the trail that disappeared into the entrance to the tower. The huge footprints did not follow him inside, but stopped at an enormous statue at the entrance. “He is running into more danger than he knows.”

“You are in more danger than he is right now.” A deep voice intoned from the dust covered statue as it turned to face them. “The master will allow me to crush you.”

A surge of panic whistled through DoomLord’s veins as he whirled his Great Axe around his head and, once more, heaved himself into the battle. Hundreds of the rattling marionettes had swarmed out from the doorways and windows overlooking the narrow street, just as he and Michael had chased down the last of the fleeing barbarians and now they found themselves overrun with no means of escape.

There was no honour in destroying these pawns of a greater evil because DoomLord recognised the desperate fear that drove them to fight. These were merely puppets, not warriors, and to begin with he had tried to warn them by bashing them away with his fists. There were too many of them, however, and they had not heeded his warning. Now, even with every biting swing of his axe splitting a wooden limb or torso, the onslaught had not faltered and DoomLord could feel his tremendous muscles tiring.

“Michael!” He roared, but there was no sign of his shining ally anywhere. He looked around urgently trying to find a more defensible position and felt a sharp blow open up a cut on his cheek. A momentary lapse in concentration threatened to make his panic gush out of control, and he wondered at his own terror. Never before had he felt so frightened. He had fought battles against the Internet’s most fiendish players and was renowned throughout the gaming world as the bravest champion of lost causes. “Michael! Where are you?”

He lashed out again with his axe and felt it dig into something solid and when he tried to yank it back he found that it was stuck fast. He smashed a mailed hand across the mask of a marionette who was trying to prise his fingers off the axe’s handle and he retightened his grip, but inexorably DoomLord felt it being dragged away from him. The weight of bodies pressing in from every side kept him from following.

Desperately he fumbled around the top of his boot for his knife. He was off balance now though and his assailants pressed home their advantage. DoomLord lost his hold on his treasured axe and it started to get dark as more and more of the cloaked figures piled on top of him. The weight of them made him fall to his knees and then forward onto his chest. He coughed as he inhaled the dirt off the cobbles of the street.

His whole body was being pummelled by the hard wooden fists of the marionettes and pain coursed through him. The silent world of unconsciousness flooded into his mind.

Spokes and Bandicoot were struggling desperately against the might of the Minotaur. Its huge bulk made the fight virtually impossible to win, and it seemed to be backed by arcane programming that all of Spokes’ technical ability could not penetrate.

Bandicoot bounded about, gamely trying to distract the monster away from Spokes while she tried to summon up some magic to let them escape, but it was hopeless. The Minotaur toyed with them as a cat plays with mice. It would allow Spokes to see what looked like an escape route only to block it off at the last second with a feral snarl.

“You are weak. Is this all the real world can muster against us?”

“The real world? What do you mean? Is this not real enough for you, monster?” Spokes had not time for idle conversation but she knew she was unlikely to win this fight by strength of arms, so she indulged the creature’s whim.

“Ha!” The Minotaur bellowed. “You do not know what you are dealing with. Soon you will be dead, but after that the real war will begin. We have been trapped for too long amongst your memories or nightmares.”

“You’re not real. You’re only a facet of some game designer’s over worked imagination.”

The Minotaur laughed again almost deafening Spokes. “Perhaps a game designer…perhaps a doctor or a policeman. You understand nothing.”

He brought his huge axe around in a wide arc and tried to separate Spokes’ head from her shoulders. She still had her feline grace however and dodged the blow deftly. She knew that this defence would not hold out forever. Sooner or later she would mistime an evasion and that would be the end.

She could not work out what sort of programming was behind the Minotaur. On the surface it seemed to be a particularly fine avatar that might be found in a very good fantasy game, but this belied the complexity of the beast. There was something different about it, something akin to the readings she had got from Michael.

Bandicoot somersaulted out of the way of the axe once more, and Spokes could see by the way he was favouring his left arm that it would not be long before he made a mistake.

Summoning up all the strength her fear could muster she leapt straight upwards and span in the air, flicking out a burning foot to try and connect with the face of the colossal Minotaur. She felt a sharp pain in her toes and knew that she had found her target.

The Minotaur had instinctively brought his free hand up to protect his face, and Spokes was tossed away like a rag doll. She sprawled on the ground motionless, but the Minotaur’s face was awash with dark brown blood. Bandicoot jumped up and clawed at the monster’s eyes.

With a ground-shaking bellow the Minotaur crashed down to its knees. It dropped its massive axe and scrabbled at its face before pitching headlong onto the flagstones, pinning Bandicoot’s lower body beneath its massive chest.

Spokes could not move without every sinew in her body protesting, but she managed to crawl to Bandicoot’s side. His breathing was ragged and bubbles of blood had formed at his mouth.

“It’s alright, Bandi. He’s dead.”

The monkey coughed, causing more blood to trickle out of the corner of his mouth, but he couldn’t speak.

“You’ll be okay,” she gently patted his chest.

A low whistling made her look at the vast body of the Minotaur. A double helix of light was spiralling out of the corpse, and Spokes could see that as the helix got brighter the body beneath it was fading away, until suddenly the helix vanished and they were left alone at the foot of the iron tower.

A crashing footfall made her turn around as quickly as her aching body would allow and with horror she saw the Minotaur looming within axe range above her.

“You didn’t think you could kill me like that did you?” The voice of the beast echoed around the streets. “Now it’s my turn.”

Spokes squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable crushing blow from the axe.