By David C. Daoust
Maile Purloin didn’t know what the hell that was– two grown men acting like school children scared to speak their mind. She just hoped her guess was right and it really was her presence that was holding the gangly scientist from speaking.
One hand on the wall to balance her, she hiked her foot up high enough to twist the heel around and snap it back into place. Trick heel- came in handy in her days as a pickpocket. Stumbling and falling into a mark, let her fingers invade far more pockets than just brushing up against them. ‘Course, nowadays, she mostly just used it to evade overzealous fans.
Maile could not help but be thankful for Colin’s free pass into the building, yet she would have preferred to find out what, exactly, he was doing here. Colin said she wouldn’t believe him if he told her… he was being cute, and it was, but that damned didn’t help the information flow. She couldn’t press on the way up because that ‘Elmsworth’ character was standing over them the entire time.
Colin had, however, brought her right into the heart of the matter. She was searching for who was behind this whole Arachnoid situation. Looking around at the endless rows of monitors, all depicting that unusual ‘instance’ of the game world, she had personally experienced… it would seem she’d found them.
‘Theo-BOLD games’ was selling them, the machines, ‘war machines’, controlled by witless gamers throughout the Onion, to the Big Wigs; The super rich elite of the Trade Consortium. They milled about her- foppish clothing, oversized wigs, surrounded by servants answering to their every whim.
Maile knew a thing or two about this class, enough to know those wigs weren’t so much a high class trend, as hiding the fact they wouldn’t touch ‘Brioche’ with a ten foot pole. Maile couldn’t stand the stuff, and not just how it turns people into swamp monsters, the minor health problems that came with- she found unbearable. A large portion of the Consortium, however, were constantly covered in sweat, slicked back hair, totally accepting of the consequences –ignorant of the source of all their extra doctor visits- all for a more affordable meal. The Big Wigs all made a fair share of their fortunes selling it to the masses though. She’d been in a dozen different ‘Den of Thieves’ since she was in pigtails—this one, however, was beyond seedy.
Maile was not sure about Colin, but she, was there to find and shut down the system servers, preferably before the planned raid on the Arachnoid Queen. Before the massive swarm of spidermechs could fall on what Maile was sure, were innocent bystanders. All staged to create buyers for this new, insidious, product.
Reaching into her pocket, she flicked the corner of the passcard she’d nicked off Theo, before she strode through the convention, proper, in search of any clue that may lead her to said ‘system server’.
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