Chương 87: Chapter 84: George's Run (XV)

"Nod, if time is frozen for the other players in the trial, how were we able to talk to Moira outside the trial?" George asked. >>How is any of this happening, George? >>It we start talking about time shenanigans, we are going to be in this pub forever making diagrams with straws. >>The more important thing to focus on right now is the fact that I just got all the juice on the other players. >>Moira is… thorough. These player profiles and strategy notes are pretty cutthroat.

>>Do you remember that lady that exploded along with the lizard man after we all appeared in the voting room at the start of the trial? >>Her name was Cornflower. There is a whole section about her daughter. Apparently, she has some kind of disease. Moira has notes about how Webb could use that against her, or, if he needed an ally during the trial, he could offer to have the Moa treat her daughter.

"What does it say about Max?" >>Yeah, Max has a file in here. >>And we are going to have plenty of time to peruse it… later. >>Meanwhile, we still have problems to solve. >>And I said I had TWO ideas, remember? >>Johnny told us we already had everything we needed to save Cassie when we came into the challenge room? >>I've been doing some thinking about that riddle and have come up with… let's see… ZERO ideas about what that freaky little dummy meant. >>But I have an idea about how to get more ideas.

"What do you mean?" George said. >>Well, you've been walking around with a Chekhov's gun in your pocket, and it's probably time to take that sucker out and pull the trigger—and by that I mean, "Inject it into your neck."

"Nod, this is one of those times when you say something I don't understand. My usual practice is to let those comments pass unremarked and I would normally apply that practice here, however, I feel that it might be important to get the context this time, so I will make a single exception in this case," George said. >>Me make simple for George. >>Me know George have no memory. >>Me know George have no literary sensibilities. >>George have meany spider in brain—"Nod…"

>>I'm talking about the insight potion you got from Johnny. Sheesh. >>Here we are, sitting in a little English pub, and we have, apparently, all the time in the world to solve a problem. Johnny gave us an injector that advertises itself as a fountain of insight. George reached for the potion in his pocket, but before his hand got there, a compartment slid open in the thigh plate of his newly evolved armor. <Dimensional Hot Pocket> A narrow drawer extended from the thigh plate, just large enough for his gauntlet.

>>Cool. >>We should fall into piles of nanite cubes more often. The opening was just large enough for his gauntlet. He reached inside and found his arm could extend far deeper than the visible drawer. He had to stick his arm in up to the elbow before he reached the bottom, though the pocket appeared no deeper than five inches from the outside. As George felt around, he heard the tinkling sound of his gauntlet shifting the contents of his pocket.

He removed his arm from the "dimensional hot pocket" and held his hand over the opening. He cast draw, and the injector floated into his hand. George held it up to the firelight and examined it. <Daddy's Little Master Plan> It was a vial of yellow liquid enclosed in protective metal bands with a cap on one side. He opened the cap, revealing an injection apparatus with a depressible button.

"Johnny said this was like drugs," George said.

"I don't know if now's the time to get high, Nod." >>Now is the perfect time to get high, George. >>Time is literally stopped. >>If you go into the next room, you'll die in, like… sixty seconds. Then the challenge room will be over and you'll be ejected back into Sarala's Room of Death. >>So what have we got to lose? >>It is time to pull out all of the stops. >>Stab yourself with that bad boy, and let's go for a magic carpet ride. George looked at the vial, then he looked past it and stared at the fire.

He thought about what it would be like to leave the challenge room and return to Sarala's trap. Unlike the challenge room, if he failed, there would be no second chances. His son—whom he hardly knew, but who needed him—was out there, cowering under a metal shield while darts from TLX rained down and monsters ran rampant on every side. Cassie was alive for now, but if he didn't find a way to save her, she would not remain so for long.

She used what, as far as she knew, were her last moments to tell George that Tycho was his son. George took a deep breath and pulled down the edge of the flexible black material that had grown up from his armor to cover his neck, exposing his flesh. He pressed the injector against his skin and pushed the button. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. There was a momentary sting. George gasped. Then his mind opened.

In an instant, he felt more alive, more awake, and more aware than he could ever remember. It felt like the sensation of getting his stats upgraded, only multiplied a hundredfold. Thoughts and insights crowded into his awareness. There were too many to hold in conscious thought at once. His attention became a blazing searchlight that could shine in any direction he chose, calling to mind any detail he wanted—even those he hadn't realized his brain had been collecting beneath the level of his consciousness.

Everything was conscious now. He thought about Cassie—about the way she'd been hidden there behind the chair in the dark and what she must have thought when he came in and did the same thing. She'd listened to their mental conversation while Nod made fun of him. She had trusted him instantly, even with only a little snippet of their banter. That memory triggered others, each one surging in a cascade to the surface of his mind.

His attention rode a cresting wave of detail rushing in, each fragment now laced with new understanding. He saw the snowy cabin again. June had given him the same trust as soon as she'd seen him—but why? His heightened awareness assembled details he'd overlooked. Loveland's armor had been piled carelessly inside the cabin. June had sat alone on the porch without a trace of anxiety. She'd known he was there. Known he would protect her. They weren't simply companions. They were lovers.

Then TLX had come in, all bluster and momentum. Yet, the robot seemed like a known quantity now—a fixed piece on the board that George could manipulate and move as he saw fit because he understood the entirety of the machine's motivations. TLX was a statistical being with a naive focus on its mission. And that meant if George could control the object of that focus, he could control the machine. Plans hatched in his imagination one after another.

In this moment of acuity, it seemed he could send TLX like a missile in whatever target he chose, even in the voting room. The thought of the voting room brought another rush of insights. Every player's alliances, fears, and strategies were laid bare one after another under the bright light of the potion's effects. It was all right there in plain sight. He could recall the way every player had voted. He could read their minds in their gestures, their ticks, their micro-tells that mirrored their interior states.

A thousand snapshots flitted through his thoughts. He could see who was afraid, who was reassured, who—by the glistening sheen of sweat on their upper lip—had revealed themselves to be nervous about a plan they were hatching. He saw how Max's head had jerked up the first time George spoke aloud in the voting room. Max had a confused look on his face and had stared hard at George for a long time. He had recognized George's voice. Or thought he did. Then Max had looked away. Why?

Had he dismissed the possibility that his father was in the trial with him because it seemed impossible? Max bent over the backpack he was always adjusting in the voting room and George could not see his face. Then another series of insights washed over him. He'd missed something about Neco. It was a subtle sequence of gestures that had passed between Neco and Sarala in the previous voting round. The prince had twitched his fingers in George's direction and given Sarala a small nod.

Her posture straightened and then she turned her head in George's direction. He could not see her face inside her mask, but her smile was written all over her body. But what had Neco communicated? George focused on the micro-expressions that passed over the muscles of Neco's face. Indulgence. Acquiescence. Frustration. Why those? As soon as the question floated to the surface of his mind, the answer rushed in after it. Sarala had asked Neco if she could attack George. Sarala was a Rook.

She had some relationship with Neco. It was likely that she knew that because of the helmet, George was in Neco's pocket. Then, George had showed up in the voting room wearing Webb's armor. Sarala jumped to the obvious conclusion that George had killed him. But she didn't have the authority to take her own revenge. She had to ask for the prince's permission. George had seen them talking on the screens while Cassie was eating pizza in the mall. That had been the moment.

However, the helmet made George an asset and Neco had said no. Then something changed. George focused in on the moment in the voting room before Neco had given Sarala that signal. Ah. There it was. Cassie. When the voting round began and George was at the top of the leaderboards, Cassie had said his name with such surprise and, beneath the surprise, unmistakable familiarity. There had been affection in her voice. Then she had covered her mouth with her hand and looked embarrassed.

Neco glanced at her, then stared fixedly at the center of the room while the gears of his mind spun into motion. Seventeen seconds later, he signaled Sarala. Why? Another memory tugged at him. When they met June and Loveland at the cabin, June had said, "I know who her parents are." That was it, then. The Mentis. Cassie represented a threat that transcended the trial. There were politics here, the game of houses. Cassie's parents were powerful telepaths, ruling an entire guild of telepaths.

Neco had to assume that eventually they would know everything that happened in any trial in which their daughter participated. She had to be handled carefully. Alone, George was an insignificant player. George as Cassie Junipero's ally was another matter entirely. Would Neco have assumed Cassie had given him a Mentis token? Possibly. If Cassie was involved in George's trial, then the question of George had become more complicated. He became a potential problem to be dealt with—indirectly.

Cassie's outburst and George's sudden rise to the top of the leaderboard had triggered Sarala's attack. As the insights continued, mental models shifted and transformed in George's head. It was all coming to a point. Neco and Sarala had planned to remove most of their competition in a single stroke. The trial was already a house of cards. Sarala's strike only hastened the collapse. Pine had been right. The true dangers were the standout players and the exponential forces of the swarmers. The zombies were spreading.

There was no telling how many people had been in that mall; hundreds at least. With the infection rate so high, the mall was certainly overrun by now, and the zombies were pouring through the portals, spreading the plague. The slime was multiplying on an accelerating curve. If the trial ran much longer, it would be present everywhere. And the secretive, fast-breeding vordigans were taking over rooms one by one, multiplying inside them. Perhaps Greesh had been right all along.

The hunting maze was on the edge of chaos. Yet Greesh had spent every round building her stronghold and hoarding prestige tokens so her nascent team could survive and control the vote. Nod had warned that the maze would grow even more dangerous after the intermission. Now, however, they had the complete map of the hunting maze. He could move with relative safety and speed on the jet ski.

He could find a refuge while the other players fought each other, or he could set traps and activate environmental dangers that only he knew about. He had more than a few advantages. A supercomputer lived in his head. The shard had reset and evolved in ways he was only beginning to grasp. Writher had become both tool and weapon. As the environmental danger increased, the mental acuity provided by his ability would intensify.

If the danger rose to the level that he could constantly ride the edge of the time dilation, he would be a force to be reckoned with. For most of the trial, he had been reactive—running, hiding, learning, surviving. But that was about to change. But first, he had to ensure Max and Cassie were safe. How? The inventory of his abilities, assets, and items ran through his mind. And that's when he saw it. It was there, clear as day. The answer to Johnny's riddle.

The dummy had been hinting at the ability orb that could open a portal to any other room George had been to previously. The realization unfolded in his mind at the speed of thought. George started to laugh. Johnny had been right. He already had everything he needed. The image of the carousel from the mall came to mind. When the portal opened where the dolphin seat had been, the seat was sucked through the portal. The problem wasn't that Cassie was injured or Max was threatened.

It wasn't even that Hollywood had triggered a monstrous transformation and gone on a rampage. The only problem was that they were in the wrong room. So George would bring them to the right room. Every resource he needed was waiting for him on the Trial Nine. Once he passed through the portal to the spaceship, his ability would activate, granting him greater safety, control, and speed while tamping down his emotions. He would bring Cassie. He would bring Max. He could make them safe. He would heal her.

Then he would deal with Hollywood and the rest of them. As the potion's effects began to fade, one final insight came to him. He rose, stretched out his hand toward the replica of his cradle, and cast draw on the duplicate button. It lifted off the ground and flew into his hand, an exact copy of the actual button waiting for him in his own cradle. When he gave this to the nodlings, it would double his click speed. George dropped it into the dimensional pocket.

Then, George stood up and pressed the white exit button that would end the challenge room. A new portal opened in the wall across from him, revealing the room he had left when he entered the challenge room. The hyper-attention of the potion was tapering quickly. He rehearsed his next steps. The jet ski. The orb. The shield. The Trial Nine. Hollywood. Cassie. Writher. The ability. Max. Lavender. Marcus. The healing pod. The lightrope. The sword. Then, the other players. He smiled. It was time.