Chapter 16 #2
“This is what I was waiting for,” the System said.
She raised her arms, and the void around them was suddenly filled with vast, flickering imagery, several stories tall, changing so rapidly that Chloe couldn’t identify the contents except that it seemed to be people’s MeNet profiles, thousands upon thousands whipping past. “The pattern of the cab seat is different,” the System said.
“The kidnappers are changing cabs, so the authorities can’t look in TransNet for a cab rented by one party making circuits of the city for hours.
And they’re avoiding locations near public-facing cameras.
But they can’t avoid all contact with people.
A girl in pajamas would draw attention, so they bought Kleio a new outfit.
The legionnaire sun hat helps hide her face, and the clothing brand is upscale.
That’s smart; nobody would expect a clean and well-dressed little girl to be a kidnapping victim.
That also indicates they’ll continue to treat Kleio well.
” She said this with a reassuring smile to Chloe, who did feel a welcome burst of relief.
“As Dr. Norman told you, their goal is not to coerce you into divulging my location but to tempt me to try to trace them in a way they can reverse to trace me, as the hacker tried in the last attack.”
“Can you track their connection?” Chloe said.
“No. But I can find them via other photos.”
“I thought you couldn’t access security or traffic cameras,” Marcus said.
The System nodded. “Not without LawNet or TransNet admin access. But like any user, I can see pictures that are posted publicly to MeNet. So I’m finalizing a plan.
I think I’ll use her.” The flickering imagery surrounding them resolved into a single MeNet profile: a young blond woman, Nesta Broderick, with the listed nickname “Fash’nNesta.
” Her feed was filled with pictures of herself in the usual influencer poses and facial expressions.
She wore cosplay in most of them: an armored-bra fantasy warrior, a futuristic android with silver skin, a demure elf woman in a long gown, a 1940s femme fatale.
Several of the characters looked familiar, though Chloe couldn’t place them.
The System went on. “But for this part I need help.” She looked thoughtfully at Marcus. “How well can you act?”
Chloe’s heart sank. “He can’t,” she said, as Marcus was opening his mouth to reply.
He nodded ruefully. That had been clear during and after their divorce, when they’d both still needed to interact regularly with the history department and with each other.
The whole department had known about their divorce almost as soon as she’d decided on it.
Marcus had a tell that anyone could spot: He visibly reddened, and he couldn’t hold eye contact.
He’d once told Chloe that he’d had no choice but to become a scrupulously honest person because he wasn’t capable of lying convincingly.
Chloe thought he had the causation backward: He wasn’t capable of lying convincingly because he was a scrupulously honest person. But the result was the same.
“And I can’t use you because your feelings are also written across your face,” the System said to Chloe.
Marcus snorted, and it was Chloe’s turn to nod ruefully.
“That’s okay. I’d have preferred someone old enough to play corporate power broker, but I recently crossed paths with a gifted actor who can pull off stylish young marketing exec. ” She looked at Grandma.
Grandma’s eyes had the inward look of someone working in their lenses. “On it.”
“While that piece begins to move,” the Final System said, “I’m moving the other pieces. Nesta’s a video game cosplayer.”
So that was why Chloe hadn’t recognized the characters. She didn’t play video games, but they must be well-known characters, since they were familiar even to her.
“She also looks a lot like the video game avatars that pro-gamer Rocco ‘Trophy’ Lombardi creates,” the System said.
“He plays as a young blond woman in any game that allows character customization. Nesta has cosplayed as his characters, and her fans noticed the similarities. The two are often ‘shipped’ by her fanbase online. She has a small but dedicated subculture of fans writing”—the System’s lips compressed—“let’s call it fan fiction, and creating, let’s say, artwork, in which they’re a couple.
One fan even created customized panyons of them living together in a virtual world.
Nesta encourages that, since it grows her own influence base to be associated with Trophy.
But Trophy has never noticed her. That’ll change today. ”
A new window opened, showing frenetic video game action.
A pale white-haired character who looked a little like an adult version of the System was running, dodging, and flipping around a vast outdoor arena.
She wore an everyday tank top and jeans that looked out of place in the fantasy environment, complete with a denim handbag she swung at other characters.
Every time it connected, there was an explosion of light and the other character went flying.
“Today is the semiannual BloodReign 2 charity tournament,” the System said.
“Anyone can play, though it’s always the pros who go home with the prizes.
There’s a class of character called WorldWalker that can look like an ordinary person.
It’s not popular, because even though it’s a magical character, it’s usually outmatched in PvP.
But it works well for my purposes. Now I just need to win until I’m matched against Trophy. ”
“What if you lose?” Chloe asked.
The System gave her a fond smile. On the screen, her character slid underneath the swinging sword of a hulking ogre-like character, did a backflip over his head, smashed him into the earth with her handbag, then turned and posed cheekily, looking at the camera between two spread fingers as the word Victory!
appeared over her head. “I’ve analyzed the opponents on his tournament tree,” the System said, “and they’re no threat to Trophy.
The most likely result is we meet in the first round of the finals. ”
“Holy smokes, thirty-three million viewers?” Marcus said, pointing to another window that was showing a live chat and statistics for the tournament stream.
In several other windows, MeNet posts tagged as being about BloodReign blinked by too fast to read, but Chloe caught the gist: Everyone was wondering who this new contender was.
“You’re doing all this at the same time you’re talking to us?” she said in awe.
“I’m also sending connection pings to the kidnappers’ phones to make them think I’m trying and failing to track them,” the System said. “They keep trying and failing to track me back. It keeps them busy and gives them a reason to keep Kleio alive.”
Another photo of Kleio came in at that moment. It was almost identical to the last, but Chloe thought Kleio looked even more tired and bewildered.
She shared the picture with Marcus. “This all seems very complicated,” he murmured, looking at it with an expression almost as lost as Kleio’s. “What if some of the ‘pieces’ you’re moving don’t cooperate?”
“They’ll cooperate,” Grandma said grimly.
She was very confident, Chloe thought. But contra Norman’s beliefs, people had free will, that gift and curse of humanity. Upon whose decisions did her child’s life depend?