Of Evil and Angels

Chapter 4

No one followed as she made her way back to the town center. The group was more interested in getting whatever Twinkle Toads was peddling than beating down a lone troll. She needed to get to Heather somehow. According to Bits, the girl had been logged in for several days straight. She must have inside support, similar to when Alyssalee went on her marathon recon to find out how the fleshmongers used SoS to control players.

The fleshmongers had devised a way of locking players in the game so they couldn’t log out, keeping them in a trance-like state. The Undivine didn’t know about this before Alyssalee entered the game then. So, to keep her from wetting herself and dehydrating, the medics had set her up with a nutrient drip and a catheter while she was locked in the game. But Heather had to take a break to rest, even if she was on a multi-day binge of 99-On and had an IV drip going.

Unlike Alyssalee’s nightmare of a recon session so long ago where the Undivine implemented a communications blackout to keep the mission secret, this time around, the tech team hacked a secure side-channel to communicate covertly in the game. The ET radio required a specific cognitive signature in order to communicate with the Undivine. It was like using mindfreed abilities. They had showed the trainees how to use the new technique, but this was Alyssalee’s first time using it on a live mission.

The signature had to be a feeling or thought that could be evoked on demand. This generated a neural pattern that triggered the AI, opening the channel. For her signature, Alyssalee imagined herself sitting in the orphanage, writing notes when the sisters weren’t looking and passing them to her friends. This picture in her mind’s eye is what Bits had trained her ET to decipher.

HARLEY QUINN SIX, THIS IS JOKER. OVER.

JOKER, THIS IS HARLEY QUINN, ACTUAL.

One Unified God, Cole is a worry wort, Alyssalee thought.

HARLEY QUINN, THIS IS JOKER. FLUFFBALL LOCATED. ONE ZERO ZERO POSSIBLE UNFRIENDLIES BLOCKING APPROACH. WILL WAIT FOR FLUFFBALL TO HIT THE HOOCH. ACKNOWLEDGE OVER.

JOKER, EYE-IN-THE-SKY REPORTS NO HORNED TOADS IN THE AREA. ENGAGE AT WILL. OVER.

She loved that nerd, Bits. A shiver raked her body, unsure if she could deal with facing fleshmongers—especially alone—which would be totally on her this time around.

HARLEY QUINN, THIS IS JOKER. ROGER OUT.

That’s weird, Alyssalee thought. No fleshmongers around. What the hell is Heather Dulot doing then? Alyssalee went to the back of the line that was longer now than before. This would take a while. She resolved to be patient, though she wanted to tear through the crowd and pull Heather out by the horn. Heather had to take a mental break from whatever she was doing at some point, if not to actually sleep.

A ravine filled with shrubbery lay outside the snaking line of waiting toons. Alyssalee skulked under cover of the foliage for what seemed like days but was probably just a couple of hours. A templar rode in and made his way behind the booth. Was this finally the change of shift? Alyssalee hoped. Twinkle Toads didn’t waste time chatting with her replacement and made her way toward the village center. Alyssalee guessed Heather stayed at a villa there.

Her troll avatar emerged from the shrubs and followed at a distance. She’d have to make contact before the girl entered the home because once inside, Badmash would have to be invited into Heather’s instance of the house. In SoS, Knewarc replicated housing across users, so there could be hundreds or thousands of players inside the same residence simultaneously, without ever being the wiser. This meant Knewarc didn’t have to create millions of virtual homes for all the players.

Catching up with Twinkle Toads, Badmash opened a dialogue. “Hey, you’re super popular. That line was so long, and I didn’t have time to make it through. What’s it all about, anyway?”

Twinkle Toads eyed Badmash cautiously. “It’s just a new guild I am taking applications for,” she replied.

“It must be cool beans. It’s normally the other way around, people wandering about begging people to join their guild,” Alyssalee said, channeling a newbie player.

“What can I say? We’re popular and a tight-knit group that doesn’t take well to strangers.”

Pretending not to get the hint, Alyssalee asked, “What is your guild’s specialty?”

“Hey, we are full up. Find another guild, newb!” she spat. Twinkle Toads’s floppy ears transposed to a swept-back position.

“s**t, okay. Knewarc needs to deal with elitist guilds like yours. But they never do anything. They’re almost as bad as the UNUM scum,” Alyssalee said, risking charges of heresy if she were overheard by the wrong person.

The horned rabbit’s ears went half-lop. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Heather said. Closing the gap between them, in a low voice she added, “UNUM’s a bunch of liars. Their faith has no bite, no action. It’s just so they can control us.” Her eyes flitted around.

Alyssalee seized on the sentiment. “Yeah, I think they are lying to us about the prefrontal disease spread through ETs. I bet they fear the people not wanting to serve the One Unified God. It’s like a reboot of the Uprising.”

The rabbit’s eyes grew enormous as she grabbed Badmash’s arm and pulled her towards her villa. The heads-up display registered an invitation to enter Twinkle Toad’s residence. “Let’s discuss guild membership,” she said, a literal hop in her step.

Inside, the villa was bare. The only sign of inhabitance was a fire burning in the hearth. The plaster walls were like sun-bleached bones and just as desolate. “Just moved in?” Alyssalee asked.

“I just use this place to take a break. I haven’t logged out in a few days.”

“Whoa, what? How is that possible?”

The rabbit looked her troll toon over for a moment. “Let’s talk about you. What are you looking for?”

Alyssalee considered her reply. What did she need to say to gain this girl’s trust? The truth had always worked for her in the past. Well, the truth along with select omissions. She lowered her head as if in shame. “I used to be a novice of UNUM, but that didn’t end well. They labeled me a heretic and threw me in prison.”

At this, the rabbit’s ears shot up, defying gravity. “What heresy, exactly?”

Her troll turned, shuffled a few steps before answering. “Can I trust you?”

“Of course. On the subject of UNUM, nothing is taboo here.”

“Well, let’s just say I disagreed with their teachings on the afterlife,” Alyssalee said, watching for a reaction.

The girl smiled. “And what of the afterlife?”

“I think life continues on, but not in a fluffy, cloud-laden paradise or the burning embers of a prison. I think we continue in a different state.”

The Al-Mi’raj scrunched her little, pink nose. “That’s odd. For someone who doesn’t know the purpose of the guild I represent, you are speaking to the heart of our beliefs.”

Shit, Alyssalee thought. Was Heather doubting the fortuitousness of their chance meeting?

The rabbit hopped to the hearth, her hand steadying the lower half of the staff worn on her back. She stared into the flames as if there were an answer somewhere in its midst.

Suddenly, Heather’s toon spun around, and an alert glowed on Alyssalee’s heads-up display.

YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED BY TWINKLE TOADS TO JOIN THE SOULSEEKERS GUILD.

ACCEPT OR DECLINE?

Relief lifted the growing weight of potentially failing the mission. Alyssalee quickly accepted the invite, and Heather led directly into her SoulSeekers’ membership spiel. The guild was a group of fleshmonger sympathizers. More than that, they were the non-rotting muscle for the depraved creatures. Fleshmongers could only inhabit a host for a couple of weeks, at most, before the host’s body lost the fight to eject the alien infestation. They could get a lot of work out of well-bodied and willing servants. Were these the same people as the skeletons that had attacked the Sierra Nevada Command Center? Alyssalee wondered.

The fleshmongers promised positions of authority and power to anyone who served their cause. They’d possess influential people to enhance their followers’ finances, political leverage, and, of course, to satisfy their wanton desires. The SoulSeekers extended the reach and shelf life of the fleshmongers. The vile creatures preferred to go unnoticed when occupying a body because some of the less skilled were inept at fully controlling their hosts. Because of this, they left the political power plays to the more ancient fleshmongers.

Alyssalee thought of the first case of possession that she and Monsignor Emsworth attended to—Anna Salvatore. The fleshmonger boss had taken her body. Certainly, the boss was skilled at controlling any host he occupied. After they had freed her, Alyssalee thought about how hard Anna must have fought. She’d make for an excellent recruit when she got older. Well, if she weren’t insanely traumatized by the experience. Alyssalee realized her thoughts were wandering and turned her focus back to the lengthy pitch that Heather was making.

Alyssalee had two options: come clean with her mission or keep the ruse going and let General Dulot deal with the situation. Either way, she needed to get the girl’s IRL location first.

“How do you take part in this without UNUM knowing? Are you hiding in a cave somewhere off the grid? Will I have to do the same?”

“We have a couple of holocades that spoof our location. I am in the Montpellier, France location, and we have a site in New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.”

Bethlehem again, Alyssalee thought. What was it with that place that saw so much fleshmonger activity? She figured Heather was telling the truth as UNUM headquarters were in nearby Toulouse, where she also lived with her father.

HARLEY QUINN SIX, THIS IS JOKER, OVER.

JOKER, THIS IS HARLEY QUINN SIX, OVER.

HARLEY QUINN SIX, THIS IS JOKER; FLUFFBALL’S LOCATION IS MONTPELLIER, FRANCE, IN A HOMEBREWED TOON FACTORY. CONFIRM WHEN YOU HAVE EYES ON, OVER.

JOKER, THIS HARLEY QUINN SIX, ROGER.

HARLEY QUINN SIX, THIS IS JOKER, ROGER OUT.

Alyssalee didn’t know how long Bits and his team would take to sift through the menagerie of game threads to find Heather. She had to keep this going long enough for them to grab her. General Dulot had to have his own spies in the area. All UNUM command posts had spies to keep an eye on the flock. Fleshmonger technology wasn’t at the same level as the Undivine’s, but they were upgrading quickly. She suspected it wouldn’t be long before they cracked the Undivine’s new spoofing tech.

Heather went on and on about UNUM’s injustices, which segued into how her father was an asshole. She lamented how unbearably strict he was, how she didn’t even have an inch to breathe. The girl dumped all her teenage anguish on Alyssalee. After several minutes, the message came that they had located Heather.

“I know this may be difficult but set aside UNUM for a moment and know that your father probably loves you a lot.”

The rabbit rolled her eyes. “You clearly don’t know my dad. Or any dad, for that matter,” she said, sarcasm dripping from each word.

“I never knew my father. He was likely killed by UNUM.”

The rabbit’s eyes shot wide, speechless, as her toon faded to nothing. Bits finished the mission that Alyssalee started. And there was zero doubt that General Dulot would keep his daughter under lock and key from now on. Heather wouldn’t be inviting her to any big sweet-sixteen party.

Something was troubling her. There was no mention of Heather’s mother. Alyssalee sensed the aura of motherly absence around Heather. The telltale signs were blaring in the girl, just like they blared in Alyssalee.

“f**k,” Alyssalee whispered with a heavy sigh.