Reamde

Marlon double-clicked on Reamde. The image grew to fill the screen, taking on resolution and three-dimensionality as the others faded and flattened. Reamde spun around, turning his back on them. They were now looking over the troll’s shoulder. He had been sleeping in a cave and had just now stood up to look about his surroundings. In a quick series of preprogrammed movements, Reamde pulled on clothes, armor, weapons, and boots and slung a bag over his shoulder. Then, responding to commands from Marlon’s fingers, he broke into a trot, headed down the cave toward the exit: a starry night sky, showing through a rough aperture. A few moments later Reamde stepped out into the world of T’Rain.

Day 18

“Bingo,” Corvallis said. “He is on the system. He just stepped out of his cave. It looks like he’s going to be active for a while.”

It was 8:23 A.M. Richard was standing next to his Land Cruiser beside the runway at Elphinstone’s tiny airport, watching a Cessna climb into the sky and bank south. He had just stuffed John and Jake into it and handed a couple of ancient C-notes to its pilot.

Just twenty-four hours ago, John and Richard and Jake had landed here. A single day of sitting around had been quite enough, so John had volunteered that he might rent a car and drive Jake back across the border and spend a little time with Jake’s family in Idaho. Richard—hoping it didn’t seem as if he were rushing his brothers out the door—had called a bush pilot of his acquaintance and made it happen on about thirty minutes’ notice. The roar of the Cessna’s takeoff run had drowned out the sound of Richard’s phone ringing, but he’d felt it vibrating against his butt and whipped it out moments before it had gone to voice mail.

“Do we know where he is?” Richard asked.

“Still working on that, but we think the Philippines.”

“That would kind of make sense,” Richard mused. “The shit hits the fan in China, he gets out of the country, lies low for a while, finally pops his head up when he needs cash.” The Cessna was just a faintly droning mote in a cloudy pink sunrise. He let his bottom slam down into the ragged seat of the Land Cruiser.

“Shit,” Richard said, glancing back and forth helplessly between his phone and the gearshift lever. “I can’t drive stick and talk on the phone.”

“Probably just as well,” Corvallis mused, “on those twisty mountain roads.”

“Just keep track of what he’s up to, okay? Don’t do anything that would spook him.”

“I’m not even logged in,” C-plus said. “Just tracking him with database queries.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Mostly looking for his friends. Putting a posse together.”

“So that he can go and gather gold,” Richard said. “I’ll be at the Schloss in half an hour. Call me if that seems warranted.” He hung up, stuck his phone into his jacket pocket, then opened the door and dumped tepid coffee out of his travel mug and got that stowed. There was some crap on the dashboard; he swept it off onto the floor, where it was going to end up anyway. Then he peeled out of the parking lot and began to haul ass in the direction of the Schloss.