Reaper

  He brushed a stray strand of black hair away from his eyes. “I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s impossible to build anything good on a foundation of lies. I knew that if I wanted any chance of a relationship with you, then I’d have to stop acting the part of Hawk the Unvanquished, and explain to you about Michael being my real self.”

  For a moment, I didn’t understand what he meant by acting the part of Hawk the Unvanquished and Michael being his real self, but then I remembered how smoothly assured Hawk had always been when he was dealing with his adoring fans. All the times when Hawk had seemed distressed, human and vulnerable, had been when he was alone with me and Nathan, or with old friends like Romulus, Remus, and Kwame.

  “You think of Hawk the Unvanquished as your public image rather than your real self?” I asked.

  “I think of Hawk the Unvanquished as a public image that’s in danger of swallowing my real self whole. I was trying to work out how I could possibly explain to you about Michael. I was scared that you wouldn’t understand. I was even more scared that you would understand and recoil in disgust, because Hawk is a glossy legend while Michael is just a mess.”

  He gave that one-shouldered shrug again. “When I decided to defrost from Game, I realized this would give me the chance to solve the whole relationship problem as well. I wouldn’t have to explain to you about Michael, because I could show you Michael. I could step free from the public image, and all the complications of being a Founder Player, and meet you as just another teenager.”

  He paused. “My plan was that if you seemed to like Michael, then I’d suggest we could meet again when you entered Game. If you turned down my suggestion of keeping in contact, I could just quietly fade away without embarrassing either of us. I knew I’d have to give you a fake Game name to contact me, but I could get a Game Tech to make sure any messages for that fake Game name were sent to me.”

  I was struggling to accept this situation was really happening, let alone work out how I felt about it, so I changed the subject slightly. “I don’t understand how you got here so fast. It was less than two hours between me saying goodbye to your droid at the transport stop, and you walking into this room. Just defrosting your body would take a lot longer than that, and you mentioned it was stored in a freezer unit in America.”

  “My body had already been moved to a medical unit, defrosted, and flown here before I said goodbye to you,” said Hawk. “I only had to close the carriage doors, and say I was ready to leave Game. An instant later, I was opening my eyes on a table with a couple of doctors checking me over.”

  “Didn’t it take time for you to adjust to being in a real body again? Surely after four hundred years ...”

  He laughed. “I spent an hour acclimatizing before I came here. It helped that I’ve had a lot of experience of adjusting to different Game bodies, swapping between being human to being a ghost, merman, or centaur. Leaving Game was nothing like as shocking an experience as when I entered it.”

  He was silent for a moment, his distracted expression showing he was thinking back through the centuries. “Both the Game environment and our bodies were pretty primitive back then. I remember how strange it was during the first few weeks. There was no sense of smell at all, and everything you touched felt oddly furry. You kept finding gaps in the world too, where there was nothing but a patch of black mist.”

  He shook his head. “There have been continuous improvements to Game through the years. Now the experience of being in a Game body matches real life so closely, that waking up was surprisingly easy. Moving around felt quite natural, though there’s a sort of dragging, tired feeling about being in a real body. We can eat and drink in Game if we want, though it’s not necessary the way it is in real life, so that wasn’t too strange either.”

  He blushed. “The one thing I found hard was ... The bodily functions that remove waste products.”

  I laughed.

  “No one has ever felt the need to put that in Game,” he said, “and I wouldn’t encourage the Game Techs to add it in future.”

  “Well, I think you made a fantastic adjustment. I’d never have guessed you weren’t an ordinary kid just by watching you move around, and you handled Tomath so easily when he tried to stab us.”

  Hawk pulled a self-deprecating face that was a close echo of one of his Game expressions. “Please don’t mention that. For a legendary fighter that was a humiliating exhibition. I was appallingly slow, and it wasn’t because I was unfamiliar with a real body. The truth is that I was dreadfully unfit when I was frozen, and I’d just injured a muscle in my shoulder as well.”

  He rubbed his left shoulder. “That’s still sore, so I’m a bit worried about how I’d manage a proper fight. I should be all right with guns. Anything involving genuine muscle power will be difficult, but I’ll have to cope because there’s no time for me to get into training now.”

  “I hate to admit it, but Unilaw were probably right after all.”

  “About what?”

  “About Tomath being the one who stabbed the boy at the party. How did you spot that Tomath was going to try to stab us? Did you see his knife?”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time in the Battle Arena,” said Hawk. “Plenty of fighters put on a beaten into surrender act just before they try to catch you by surprise with a sneaky tactic. Tomath’s expression and voice were those of someone who’d given up, but his muscles were tensing for action. I was ready for him to pull a knife and attack us.”

  There was a short silence. “Who knows that you’ve defrosted from Game?” I asked.

  “Among the Game Techs, Kwame and his team know. Among the players, Cassandra is dealing with messages for me, keeping up the illusion that I’m still in Game. Other than that, only a couple of doctors and the core members of the Unilaw investigation team know that I’m Hawk. Now you know it too, I’ll tell Unilaw to inform Nathan and include him in the operation.”

  “Why did you decide to defrost anyway? When I suggested it might be safer for you to leave Game, you ruled it out.”

  “I ruled out leaving Game just for reasons of my personal safety. Leaving Game to track down our rogue Game Tech is different.” Hawk grinned at me. His eyes weren’t as dark as those of the Game Hawk, but there was something similar in their expression.

  “I’m never good at delegating things to others,” he said. “I was happy to let Nathan study Game information for me, but that’s a very special case. I doubt I’d be able to understand that level of technical information, and on a purely selfish note I don’t want to know how the Game Techs design the monsters I fight. It would spoil all my Game fun. I aim to kill the Behemoth solo one day, and if I know the Game design behind it, well, that would be cheating.”

  I nodded. “I’d feel the same, but Nathan is loving every moment. He thinks it may help him become a Game Tech one day.”

  Hawk gave me a mischievous look that definitely belonged on his famous Game face. “It’ll do far more than that. Nathan’s nosing through Game secrets at lightning speed. At the rate he’s learning, within a couple of days he’ll know so much that the Game Techs can never let him be just an ordinary player.”

  I blinked. “You mean ...?”

  Hawk nodded. “Nathan’s studying their confidential training texts. He’s playing around with actual Game monsters and scenery. They’ll have to make him a Game Tech as soon as he enters Game.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “Becoming a Game Tech, helping design worlds, is Nathan’s dream.”

  “I was happy to delegate learning Game information to Nathan,” said Hawk, “but hunting the bomber and fighting are my job. That’s why I decided to defrost. Of course, there was the extra incentive that I’d be able to meet you as my real self.”

  Hawk seemed to be studying my face. I could feel myself blushing.

  “What do you think will happen now?” I asked.

  “Tomath said he’d leave a message for the Game Tech. I planted two spy eyes in his room while we were
there. Surveillance is watching him like a ...”

  I grinned. “Like a hawk.”

  The legendary skinny kid with the unruly black hair matched my grin. “Exactly. I’m sure they’ll let us know when he does anything.”

  “I hope he doesn’t take too long. This could get boring.”

  Hawk had that mischievous look on his face again. “I could suggest a way to entertain ourselves. We’re planning to have kids, and there’s a double bed here. We could bypass the whole DNA thing.”

  I stared at him in shock and confusion. “I don’t know how relationships worked four centuries ago, but these days you don’t tell a girl that you’re interested in her and then expect to go to bed with her five minutes later.”

  Hawk’s mischievous expression changed to panic. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “As for the DNA thing ...” I shook my head. “I’ve had my contraceptive shots, so I can’t get pregnant until they give me my hormone booster.”

  “I didn’t mean the DNA thing either.” Hawk groaned. “I was trying to flirt with you, make a light-hearted joke to tell you I found you attractive, and I totally messed it up because I’m Michael again. Whenever Michael tried to talk to a girl, he’d either be too shy to say anything at all, or come out with a horribly crass remark.”

  “Oh.” I thought about that for a moment, and remembered the remark Michael had made about me modelling the black lace for him. I’d known he was flirting back then and laughed. Now I knew Michael was Hawk, it changed everything. I couldn’t be sure whether he’d messed up that last attempt at flirtation, or whether I was reacting the wrong way because he was Hawk. It was probably a combination of both things.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got the message,” said Hawk. “You aren’t attracted to Michael. I thought it meant something that you were willing to exchange Game names with me and agreed I could contact you when you entered Game. I should have known you were just being polite. In Game I’m the mighty Hawk, but here I’m just gawky, incoherent Michael again.”

  He flopped backwards to lie on the bed. “It’s been four hundred bleeping years and nothing’s changed. No girl could ever be interested in dating repellent Michael.”

  Hawk was a legendary hero of Game, but right now he just looked like a deeply depressed teenage boy. I frowned at him before speaking.

  “I don’t think you’re repellent. I’m just bewildered by this situation. I don’t understand why you’d be interested in me when you’ve got hordes of girl fans in Game.”

  “The hordes of girl fans adore the flawless Hawk the Unvanquished,” said Hawk. “There were some moments between us when I let the act slip, stopped being Hawk and was Michael, and there seemed to be a genuine connection between us.”

  “But everyone is much better looking in Game than in real life, and people say that sex is a lot better in Game too.”

  “Everyone can be good looking in Game, so it’s your personality that matters.” Hawk stared gloomily up at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t know about the sex, because I never had sex in real life. I hope that jamming device is working properly, because if surveillance heard me say that, then I’ll ...”

  The female voice of surveillance spoke in my ear again. “We’re hoping you can still hear us.”

  “No!” yelped Hawk.

  “Tomath was walking round his room,” continued surveillance, “he’s now using his phone to do something.”

  Hawk gave a sigh of relief. “For a second, I thought she was going to say a whole mob of Unilaw officers had been listening to my confessions of sexual inexperience.”

  “Tomath has now put a note on his personal online diary detailing your visit and asking for help,” said surveillance.

  “Personal online diary?” Hawk turned to me. “Who can see that?”

  “In theory your online diary is private,” I said, “but everyone’s very careful what they put on it. The diary is linked to your Game record, so Unilaw officials and Game Techs can access it.”

  Hawk nodded. “So now we have to wait until the bomber checks Tomath’s online diary.”

  “If the bomber ever checks it at all. Putting myself in his or her head, I wouldn’t care if Tomath had a problem and wanted to contact me. The only time I’d bother with Tomath was when I wanted to order him to do another job.”

  “Kwame told all the Game Techs that one of their own ranks was involved in the bombing. Our rogue Game Tech will be anxious to know what else we’ve discovered, and watching Tomath’s record for any notes about him being questioned by Unilaw.”

  “Point,” I said. “If our bomber does access Tomath’s diary, will Unilaw be able to trace their identity?”

  “I doubt it. He or she has covered their tracks very well so far. I expect they’ll have a way to check Tomath’s diary without leaving any clues, but eventually they’ll make a mistake. Game Techs are used to preparing everything well in advance and being totally in control of a situation. Our bomber will be most vulnerable when forced to respond rapidly to an unexpected event.”

  “Like us blackmailing Tomath?”

  “Yes.” Hawk groaned. “I must remember not to say yes but yah, the way all kids do these days, or I’ll give myself away.”

  “If the Game Tech decides to contact us, then we use the same story we told Tomath? Pretend we’re desperate and we’ll do anything if the Game Tech helps us get into Game.”

  “Yah.”

  The voice of surveillance spoke again. “Tomath’s personal diary has been accessed.”

  Hawk sat up, and clicked the button on his phone to stop jamming the eyes and ears in the room. “Surveillance, have you got details of who accessed the diary?”

  “The access came from within Game,” said surveillance, “but we were unable to obtain any further details since the access lasted for less than one hundredth of a second.”

  Hawk frowned. “Less than one hundredth of a second? That makes no sense. The bomber couldn’t have read Tomath’s note in that time.”

  “The access wasn’t done manually by the bomber,” said surveillance, in a pitying voice, “but by an automated process.”

  “Oh, I see.” Hawk clicked the jamming button again and pulled a face at me. “Surveillance still seems unhappy with me.”

  I grinned. “Just a little.”

  “All Game Techs are computer experts,” said Hawk. “It makes sense that our bomber would use an automated process to do things like check Tomath’s Game record and diary. Presumably our message has now been sent to the bomber.”

  I felt a surge of adrenalin, preparing me for instant action.

  “The bomber is bound to take a while to decide whether or not to contact us,” added Hawk.

  I calmed down again. “What if the Game Tech doesn’t bother contacting us, just clears our fake records? We won’t have learnt anything at all.”

  “I doubt the bomber would help us without asking for something in return. It’s more likely they’d decide to do nothing at all and abandon Tomath to his fate, but they’ll be torn between curiosity and caution. I’m hoping that curiosity will win.”

  There was silence for a while after that. I temporarily abandoned worrying about the bomber, and went back to worrying about purely personal issues.

  “You didn’t tell me you were defrosting because you wanted to meet me as Michael,” I said. “Your idea was to keep pretending to be an ordinary player and wait until I entered Game. I suppose a year doesn’t seem that long a time to you, but what were you going to do after that?”

  “I planned to mask up.”

  “Mask up? What does that mean?”

  “Founder Players can’t go anywhere without attracting huge amounts of attention. Sometimes we get a Game Tech to alter our appearance and give us a fake Game name. Then we can fade into the background and do things without people knowing who we are.”

  I was puzzled. “But players in Game have an arm bracelet that shows their status. The fact your bracelet is diamond would t
ell everyone that you’re a Founder Player.”

  Hawk laughed. “We can mask that too; get our bracelets changed from diamond to be gold, silver or bronze like ordinary players. My idea was to mask up, meet you, and see how things progressed. If it looked as if things were working out between us, I’d pick a good moment to tell you who I really was.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that I might be a bit annoyed about you lying to me?”

  Hawk sighed and flopped backwards on to the bed again. “I didn’t think this through very well, did I? Apart from anything else, it was utterly stupid of me to think I could hide the fact I was Hawk for weeks or months. The reality was that I couldn’t even manage a couple of hours without giving myself away.”

  “I was totally convinced by your story until you made the mistake of saying your real life name. You looked just like an ordinary kid who’d entered Game at eighteen. How old are you anyway? Physically, I mean. Your real life age is classed as medical information, so it isn’t on your open record.”

  “I told you the exact truth about my age,” said Hawk. “I entered Game three days after my eighteenth birthday, which meant I was the youngest of the Founder Players. For legal reasons, the company insisted you had to be over eighteen to enter the Game. If I’d been born four days later, then Hawk would never have existed.”

  That was a disturbing thought. I couldn’t imagine the Game without the charismatic Hawk. There were plenty of other Founder Players, but Hawk was the embodiment of all the Game legends.

  “Would you like to know what I thought when I first saw Michael?” I asked.

  Hawk leaned on one elbow to get a better view of me. “No one can resist asking to hear that sort of thing. I’ll probably regret it.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the memory surface. “I thought you needed a haircut. You weren’t exactly handsome, but you certainly weren’t ugly. You seemed very intelligent.”

  Hawk tipped his head to one side and back again. “Could be a lot worse. At least you didn’t think I had the sex appeal of a decomposing slug.”