The Apocalypse Contract

CHAPTER 45 - MEL

Mel watched as the pirate ship shrank away into the distance. "Well that was unexpected."

"It looked like a farpoon," Sydney added.

"Yeah, but who fired it?" Mel turned from the ship's steering wheel, finally noticing that Peter and Samantha were missing. A moment later, Samantha sprinted up the staircase into the wheelhouse.

"Peter," Samantha gasped. "He just... dissolved. Right in front of me." Her face was drained of color. Her eyes leaked panic.

Mel felt a cold knot form in her stomach. "I was afraid of something like this the moment I saw how low his hit points were."

"But he'll respawn, right?" Sydney asked.

"If we were in here as players, yes... but I had to drop us in as game assets to keep us hidden from that Nandan worm." Mel pulled a terminal window into existence and began scrolling through the game status logs. Her mind raced, fear chasing her thoughts while she pursued a solution.

"What has happened?" Roger demanded. "Are you saying that Peter has perished?"

"I... I don't know," Mel closed the log file and opened the active process list. "Damn it! I can't actually do anything without looping commands through an external hexframe, and that will lead the worm right to us."

Sydney peered over her sister's shoulder at the terminal window. "You don't have a back-door within the game itself?"

"I do, but not one I can access from here. If we were in Capital City... but there just isn't enough time. The game could reclaim his memory at any moment."

Samantha grabbed Mel's shoulder. "There has to be something you can do."

Mel took a deep breath. She desperately wanted to go into shadowspace, but that would require an external administrative command that would reveal their location. In fact, every solution she considered suffered from that drawback.

Sydney seemed to sense the spiral her thoughts were trapped in. "What is it we've always said when faced with only bad options?" she prompted.

"Pick the least bad," Mel finished. She nodded to her sister, then swept away the status window. She replaced it with an administrative command window and began a flurry of swiping and tapping. "Buckle up, amigos... the ride gets bumpy from here on."

The scene outside the windows changed. Suddenly the airship was sailing above a spectacular city, a riot of tall buildings, styles ranging from gothic to art deco, arrayed in rings around a massive spire that loomed over the city. The buildings were linked together by bridges and walkways, and the churning clouds of the maelstrom could be seen through the gaps where streets would normally be. The entire city was floating in the air, like the numerous airships that flew between and above the buildings.

"Saints above," Roger gasped, "it's spectacular."

"No time for sightseeing," Mel advised, "we have places to be." She cranked one of the valves among the ship's controls, then slammed a large lever forward. The ship began to descend while they picked up speed.

She aimed the ship toward the building she wanted, then realized it was not the right one. Her orientation was off by 90 degrees. She cranked the wheel hard to starboard and twisted the valve to slow their descent. The ship swung dangerously close to the peak of a cathedral-like building as she wrestled it to the correct course.

Samantha clutched at a brass pipe to hold herself steady. "Oh gosh, I feel seasick."

"Nonsense," Mel countered, "there isn't even an ocean in this sim." She steered the ship in between two rows of buildings while it continued to descend. The bottom of the gondola scraped across a bridge connecting buildings on either side.