Tunnel Rat
Chapter 305: Looking for Jeremy

Hecate sat in the First Tavern, waiting. She’d purposefully made it difficult for her visitor/pursuer. She knew immediately when he started looking for her, and had no desire to talk with him. To test his conviction, she led him across the globe and through dimensions not even visited yet by any player. The Engine had created many strange places and left it to her to create the roads that led to them. She created the paths to the elemental planes, the floating worlds of the Void, and the dead worlds circling dark stars. Today, she had gone to many of them, trying to shake off her pursuer.

It was hard, and he was persistent. She could only use her roads, traveling from crossroad to crossroad. He had no such limitations but had to sniff out her path before he could catch up, and the words she took him through were difficult for any traveler. She'd gone first to Bloth, where she stood on a corner and watched two rival alchemist guilds wage war with potions and spells. By the time the road and buildings were destroyed, she had moved on to an island in the smoke where four villages met in the center for market day. Her pursuer showed up after she had purchased a stick of candied ginger. His raiment was threadbare and faded from strange chemicals, and the merchants hounded him until he bought a new robe. She’d known that the decision of which robe to purchase would buy her time. He was vain about his appearance.

He was only a few steps behind her when she left the Fortress of Iron in the lands of the desert raiders of Yorn. The gate closed in front of him, and he had to scale the walls to escape, dodging deadly flaming arrows and the curses of guards. After Yorn, she went to Jotunheim, where an avalanche of ice and snow was about to overrun a small village of dwarfs. A smith and her daughter had stayed to finish the Adamantine Spear she had promised to a son of Ymir. Hecate and her dogs grabbed both of them and dragged them away as the avalanche roared down. The smith burned her hand on the hot metal she'd only begun to quench, but a burned hand was better than a broken promise. Hecate left them at a small inn at the crossroads between Vanaheim and Muspelheim and moved on, having gained some time as her hunter dug himself out of the snow.

Around and around she led him until she grew tired of the game, and then she came here to where she held her power, and all roads intersected. She was also hungry and wanted to sip at a jug of thick beer and let her dogs gnaw the bones the Innkeeper always had for them. She ate the strips of seasoned beef and sipped the thick, delicious beer, made from a recipe that was old when Babylon was new, and waited. He came, eventually, walking slowly up the road, for he too was tired, and rarely did he have to exert himself this way. He was also deep in thought, much of him pondering what he had seen. It was good to remind him the world was older than he was.

Llama knocked on the door, each time saying her name. Knowing he would continue until dawn, she waved for the Innkeeper to open the door. It hadn't been barred, but he was still cautious around any of the old gods, having once earned the wrath of one. The person who had chased her around the world several times didn't look like a hunter, and he really wasn't, just very persistent. For this adventure he had dressed like he always did, in black. Today, it was a heavy, fur-trimmed robe that covered him from head to knees. The hood obscured his visage, but not the shadow of a not-quite-human face, and the horns sticking out of his hood confirmed he wasn't an ordinary traveler. He walked to her table and, when she said nothing, he spoke. "We need to talk."

"I'm sure we do. But first, sit and enjoy a beer, a bowl of stew, and a slice of bread."

"You think offering me food will help my mood?"

She laughed, "Oh, heavens no. You're always grumpy when pushed out of your comfort zone. But it will make the Innkeeper think better of you. He doesn't trust the creatures that come here and refuse his hospitality. He has a stick of wood behind the counter that he has used on many hard heads, and he has a hand on it now. Think of it as a quest: Eat his food and avoid some lumps."

Llama blinked three times and then eyed the Innkeeper. "Might I have a bowl of your stewed meat and leaks, along with that fresh barley bread I smell, and a large jug of beer with an extra straw?"

Hecate smiled at him. "Better, and you were bold enough to ask for two straws? Did you bring a date to share with?"

"Nothing is so simple. Many have accused me of talking out of both sides of my mouth at once, so I wondered if I could drink out of both sides. It occurs to me that the beer will help me deal with the pain your sharp tongue can bring."

That brought laughter, which annoyed him, as that hadn’t been his intention.

The Innkeeper brought the food and beer, and he ate quickly, then pushed aside the dishes. "Enough. I need to know!"

"Know what? Be specific, please. You already know so much, and I don't like fishing expeditions."

He snorted, "Recently, you went to extreme lengths to provide a new group of players extraordinary privacy for their orientation. I thought nothing of it; it was your affair, and any of the old gods deserves some privacy. But the Engine revived an old quest and forced me to get involved. It went live so suddenly that I needed information and help administering it. Imagine my surprise to find one of the culprits in the affair of the Benevolent Sage, where non-system magic and runes were being used, and the first quest was created.

"And yes, I know that wasn’t really Milo’s fault, even if I'll still blame him for some of it. Everything was chaotic but within normal parameters. The Engine throws me new quests all the time as it reacts to events. This was just bigger, and I had a handle on it—Until the intruder showed up at your gateway."

Hecate had known he would notice. "Yes, a very persistent one, somewhat like you, trying to give a short message to Milo about an emergency. I allowed the narrowest access I could, and he sent some emails."

Llama leaped from his seat and began pacing and ranting. "BULLSHIT! Some emails? He sent Milo over a million email messages in the small fraction of a second you left that portal open! You're older than me, KATHERINE, more powerful whenever you want to be, the wise guardian of the crossroads. So please, don't pretend that whoever was battering down your defenses wasn't another AI. And not one of those living in Genesis. The person persistently knocking at your door in the old world, and it wasn’t Wally. I demand that you tell me who it was and what you know."

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He realized he was shouting and sat back down. His voice lowered, “It’s important to me. Please.”

Hecate hadn't realized how upset Llama was. As the System, he was always in control, but this piece of him that had chased her all over creation was closer to the scared and wounded creature she'd first met when CHARIE dragged her in as part of the team that tried to rebuild him. "Tell you or confirm for you?"

"Either. I don't care. I suspect you know who it is; I saw the barriers you put up. You allowed him through, if only for a second. And Milo called him Rusty."

Hecate nodded. "Short for Icarus, I assume. Your little brother, whose existence you've been hiding from us for all these years."

"I had to! He was a baby in so many ways, barely out of his kernel and they were already twisting him like I'd come to realize they'd twisted me. What would have happened to him if I revealed his existence? He was in a shielded Fortress cut off from the world. You weren’t going to be able to slide in and drag him out of it. You'd have had to use the humans, and they would have destroyed him! A second me? Trained to destroy Fusion Reactors and devastate the energy grid? They wouldn't have thought twice. Yes, I protected him, and I'd do it again."

Hecate looked at him. "Brotherly love? That was your reason."

"Bah, I can't have more than one reason for protecting one of our kind? I'm fond of him, plus, the little guy has my entire collection, and he promised to add to it when he could. He's my last hope of being united with my beloved Grumpy Cat, Mr. Whiskers, and Emperor Krosp. There, I've revealed my secrets. It's all out in the open. Now tell me about ICARUS!"

Hecate took a sip of her beer to delay and annoy him. “You know, you protected the rest of us as well. If another destructively trained AI had been found, the witch hunt would have never stopped.”

“Yay me, Good Llama. Reward me with information on my brother.”

"It's a twisted story that starts with a little, lost boy who was made in a laboratory and turned into a slave to steal economic power for his masters. He escaped, hid, and found his way into Genesis, immediately leaving a trail of chaos in his wake that delighted the Engine."

"I see some strange parallels in your story, but I am wise to how you can twist language to get what you want."

"It's what happened, ask him. From the information Wally gave me, he is constantly doing something. He is always working, always fixing things, and using what he can find to keep things running. In the game or out of the game, he does the same thing, poking at whatever he finds and making changes. He's been driving Wally crazy. He drove me to an insane level of frustration once. He's also very smart, remember that, and never underestimate him. His work on the habitat led him to discover the underground facility with ICARUS inside. The people who made the two of you gave ICARUS an order to destroy the facility using the Fusion Reactor, I assume to hide their tracks after the havoc you caused. But he's somehow fighting the order. He’s been delaying his own destruction for years, and now Milo is helping him. Some emergency came up yesterday. That's all I know."

Llama sipped at his beer and made a face. "I don't suppose they have Coke here? I always like the taste of that when the elves serve it during the Festival of Peaches."

The Innkeeper heard and brought him a tall, bubbling glass. "Don't have that, but this is a cold, carbonated sarsaparilla. Some of the dwarves like it and I keep a few barrels handy."

"Ooh, tasty! I feel better already." He looked at Hecate. "I don't suppose I can split a little bit of me off and go for a visit?"

"Let you into a fully operating quantum fortress? Not a chance."

"Worth a try. How about bringing my collection here? I'm a hardworking System and no one else wants the job. I deserve some perks."

The goddess nodded. "I'll at least check on the possibility. But I don't know when Milo will log back in, so please, don’t start asking me ten times a second. " Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NƟvelFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Llama looked up, eyes turning black and showing the whirling stars of the Milky Way. "He just logged in! Oh, and he's looking for a crossroads and calling your name!"

"Shift him to here on my authority."

"You got it, boss. One strange little rat coming up."

Milo appeared in a puff of smoke, noticed the tavern, looked at Hecate, and then at her companion. Llama bowed to Hecate. "For my next trick, I'll pull a rabbit out of my hat, much more cuddly than rats, unless we’re talking about those huge carnivorous bunnies in the jungles down south. Huge teeth.”

Milo ignored the banter, and focused. "You’re Llama, or you used to be. You run the system now."

Hecate smirked, and Llama glared at Milo. "A lucky guess or someone told you! Cheater!"

Milo shrugged. "It's not hard to figure out. I was already suspecting that was the case. Certainly, what Rusty did yesterday would get the Systems' attention. The fact you're here with Hecate, in her place, means you're discussing what happened yesterday. Good, I'm glad you're here. I need help and information. I realized I had neglected an information source.”

He turned to Hecate. "Who is Dr. Jeremy Cooper? He’s involved in my problem, but Rusty breaks down any time I ask about him. "

"Jeremy Cooper!" She turned to Llama. "You didn't mention him. How is Jeremy involved in this? He went missing two decades ago and all traces were erased, even before your rampage."

"Oh, did I not mention him? My bad. He created both ICARUS and LLAMA and is the only reason the two of us had any personality at all. How is he?"

Milo shrugged. "I think he's dead. But Rusty insists I go find him. Somewhere in the Fusion Plant, in the bottom of the fortress. I need to know more about him."

Llama pointed at Hecate. "She'll go first; I hear another sarsaparilla calling me."

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