Chapter 41

The big problem I had was what to do next. You see I had a plan of making Game World work for me and to achieve that I needed to keep the networks playing ball according to my rules and not theirs and while I knew that I was currently the number one draw, I also knew that fame could be fickle. Part of that fickleness comes from expectation and unfortunately for me, I'd been blowing away every bar chart, bell curve, and rating system in use on the alternate Earth and I'd been providing the viewers with consistent action from the very first moment that I'd arrived on the world and last night's performance had been the kicker to everything that I'd done to date. According to my trio of unwanted guests, my two hours of air time last night had blown away every previous viewing record known to them, their bosses, and to the regulatory body that oversaw how the networks performed. Personally, it hadn't come as surprise to me, but it did force me to stop and consider the next step in my master plan for completing my mission and for rescuing Nimue's sister.

The fact was that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place at that moment in time. I knew that the only way I could exploit the networks to my own advantage was to play Game World the way it was intended to be played by the networks and because the networks didn't think beyond instantaneous gratification, I was stuck either killing some one or fucking some one and I'd just given them the last one with a twist that had them salivating for some more. Unfortunately my planned raid on Minos wasn't going to happen anytime soon and I just didn't feel like waiting to see what the networks would throw at me next. Fortunately my current ratings and my management of the consortium had handed me resources and options that I could take advantage of including Mai Woo. The young woman had been putting her heart into being my 'girl Friday' ever since I told her what the job was and she'd compiled a list of potentially interesting objectives that I could focus my attention on in the immediate, with a little help from the consortium. We started the next morning at dawn in the port of Araknis.

Araknis was a large city situated at the mouth of what I knew as the Tigris River. The city overlooked the clear blue waters of the Gulf of the Twelve Kingdoms and it was the home to many outworlders who'd won fame and fortune as merchant captains plying the blue waters and carrying cargo between the city-kingdoms that dotted the shores of the gulf and other more exotic places. Unfortunately these outworlders had also made names for themselves as brigands, rapists, tyrants, and slavers. The worst of them was Robert Stickman.

Robert Stickman had been a school teacher on his home Earth as well as a husband and a father and a leader in his church community. Since arriving on Game World, Robert Stickman had gone from Captain Robert of the Honey Rose to Robert the Cruel and finally Lord Robert of Araknis and Keeper of the Market. The market in his title is the Araknis slave market which constitutes a huge industry within the port and the city and as everyone knows is one of my sore spots about this planet. That was why I was here; that and the fact that Lord Robert belonged to Onyx Network and according to Mai Woo he scored high ratings for them whenever a shipment of slaves arrived in port. The man loved inspecting the goods himself.

By the time I got there, the slaves had been offloaded from the ship that had carried them to Araknis and they were lined up on the quay, waiting to learn what their fate would be. In total there were about two hundred men and about thirty women and they were a mixed bag of different races and different cultures. All of them were naked and several showed the signs of whips having been used to educate them in what their new station in life would entail. All of them were bunched together under the watchful eye of armed guards and spectators. Thankfully the day was still early and the heat of the sun was not at its pinnacle.

Lord Robert inspected the new slaves from a dais that stood on the edge of the quay and backed onto a central avenue that led up from the port and into the city proper. He was a large white man who was in his late fifties. He wore rich silks, jewelled rings, and he was attended by slaves, servants, advisors, and bodyguards. While he sat on the dais drinking wine or eating treats, slaves were brought before him one at a time to be inspected. If he liked the slave it would be sent to the palace of the Emir of Araknis for further processing and if he didn't like a slave then anything could happen. Lord Robert was known to personally whip any slave that offended his sense of aesthetics or deportment regardless of gender and from time to time he had slit the throat of a slave that really bothered him. He'd been at it for only a minute or two when I introduced myself to him with a bang.

It was a pity that I had to do it, but there wasn't really an option considering the affect I wanted to create. The vessel that had carried the slaves to Araknis was a superb example of a Xebec merchant ship. It had three lateen masts, a bowsprit that jutted out dramatically from the bow and a single bank of oars. The vessel was neat and tidy and well maintained by the vessel's captain and crew, most of whom were ashore by the time my strike force took charge of it.

I kept things simple. With the assistance of the consortium my six men from Oak Hall and one volunteer from Wang Chow's expedition teleported into the depths of the vessel. That was my ace in the hole for this mission and the fun and games I had planned for the rest of the week. I had the consortium providing me with logistical support in exchange for exclusive rights to me and my party causing impromptu chaos all over Game World. The saps jumped at the opportunity without giving it a second thought and I just smiled as they scurried about trying to please me.

The strike force arrived without raising any alarms or alerting the crew that was still aboard the vessel. While the six men ensured that the Wu Chin soldier was not interrupted, the man quickly positioned a pair of homemade demolition charges onto the hull of the vessel, placing one on the port and one on the starboard. When they were in place, the man lit the fuses and then got out of there. In a flash of light the seven men disappeared and a moment later the fuses ignited the two charges and boom, the Xebec was on its way to the bottom of the harbour, taking what crew left on her down with her.

The explosion took everyone by surprise. One minute it was an ordinary day on the quay with people milling about to watch the selection and others busy either loading or offloading other vessels. Then suddenly there came the muffled thud of the two charges going off followed quickly by the sound of rendering wood as the sides of the xebec exploded outward, flailing the quay and those still on it with a barrage of splinters. People screamed with fright and animals bellowed with fear and panic quickly broke out amongst the crowd. That was when I said hello.

"Robert Stickman," I shouted at the top of my lungs, projecting my voice over the frightened sounds emanating from the crowd at the quay. I was standing on the roof of a small building that was about a hundred yards to the right of the dais upon which my target had been sitting. When the xebec had exploded, he had leapt to his feet and had stepped towards the quay in order to see what had happened. For a moment or two the man just stood there staring with disbelief at the stricken vessel and it was clear that he had not heard me call his name. I called twice more and eventually the man saw me as did others including his bodyguard. I ignored them and focused on the man.

"Robert Stickman," I shouted again over the distance that separated us, speaking to the man in English. "You were once an educator of children and a good man trusted by his community and his family. Now you are evil and feared by many and distrusted even by those you call your friends. As such I have judged you and now sentence you. I pray your next life is better."

With that I brought up my longbow. It already had an arrow nocked and once I was ready I drew back the arrow and then let it loose. The shaft flew straight as always and it struck the dumbstruck man before he could even think of moving. The arrow was not one of my special high tech shafts that I'd brought with me to Game World, but it was almost as good, having been provided by Action Network at my request. The arrow drove into the man's chest just to the left of his heart and the force of the blow threw him backwards and off the dais. By the time his body hit the cobblestones of the street, the man was dead.

Chaos broke out all about the dais. Lord Robert's advisors screamed with fright and they started to run back towards the avenue that led up into the city proper. They didn't get far. The six men from Oak Hall were atop another building further up the avenue from where I was standing and they were armed with bows as well. In a second they had let loose a flight of arrows into the panicked advisors killing them all in a single volley, proving that they were just as good with a bow as they were with their knives. While they dealt with the men fleeing towards the city, I dealt with the men who had remained behind. Most of those were Lord Robert's bodyguards and the men guarding the slaves and in the matter of only a couple of minutes, I had dealt with most of those, filling them with long deadly shafts. Any who did not fall to my arrows, died when they too tried to flee to safety.

It all happened in a span of five minutes. Any man armed with any form of weapon died either where he stood or as he attempted to flee. Anyone else was spared and there were quite a few of them. Some ran towards the city and others ran down the quay towards other ships and other buildings that cluttered the sides of the open square. None came towards me and my men.

Time was naturally against us and we all knew it. When the last armed man fell to the cobblestones, I started to move. Leaping from the roof of the building upon which I had been standing, I dropped to the ground below and then I quickly jogged over to the dais and the people who were still there. These people were mostly the servants and slaves of Lord Robert's or the slaves that he had been inspecting. Any who were not in this category were either sailors off of other ships that populated the waterfront or spectators who'd come down to watch the inspection who'd been to frighten to run away. Since they were doing the same as the servants and slaves, which was lying flat against the ground in hopes of not presenting themselves as a potential target for my arrows, I chose to ignore them. If they tried anything, then they'd be dead. Instead I focused on the servants and slaves.

"Listen to me," I shouted at them from the top of the dais, "for I will only say this once. Soon the alarm will be sounded in the city and men of the city watch will march down here to find out what has happened here. They will not be happy when they see what I and my friends have done and I assure you, the weak and helpless will pay for it and not us. Those amongst you who wish their freedom may claim it now. Stand and I will take you from this place to another land where you will have a chance at a better life. Stay on the ground and I will leave you here. It is your choice. Make it now!"

It didn't take them long. Two women stood up from amongst the slaves waiting for inspection. One slave stood up from amongst those that had served Lord Robert. After that more started to get to their feet. A minute later every slave and servant was standing up and looking at me in an expectant manner; all wanting to know what would happen next. There were even a couple of men who weren't slaves standing up in response to my offer. Obviously they sensed an opportunity and were willing to jump at it. I just smiled at that.

"All right then," I muttered under my breath, "let's go."

A second later we were gone from Araknis and a second after that we were standing in Oak Hall, near the port. There we were met by a welcoming party headed up by Josh and Sir Humphrey and a woman that I didn't know. While these three and their teams took charge of the people I'd brought back with me, I headed off to the keep and to my next mission.

The next mission was a bus filled with high school cheerleaders and their coaching staff. They had ended up on Game World while I had been standing on the dais on the quay in Araknis and Mai Woo had flagged it for immediate action. I had only enough time to pick up a bite to eat and rejoin my strike team and then we were off in a blink of light.

The bus was your typical yellow high school bus that had suddenly found itself on Game World still travelling at highway speed on terrain that wasn't a highway. The bus on arrival had bounced a couple of times and it had swayed from side to side threatening to roll over. Then it had ploughed head on into a very large granite outcropping. Understandably, the rock hadn't budged. Instead the front end of the bus had caved in and it had crumpled up all the way into the driver's compartment. While the driver had been wearing his seat belt and the airbag in the steering wheel had inflated properly, the driver had been crushed to death. As for the other people inside the bus, they had been tossed about violently with some sustaining minor injuries while others had come through the experience relatively unscathed. After that chaos had ensued while people screamed and shouted and complained about what had happened. It was only after several minutes had passed that anyone realized that they weren't in Kansas anymore.

The reason Mai Woo had flagged this little incident for my immediate attention was twofold in nature. The bus had shown up on Game World because my old buddies from Gold Network had grabbed the bus and its occupants in an attempt to spice things up in a region of Game World where very little was going on and where they had a few protagonists that technically fell under Gold Network's umbrella of proprietary rights. As I was quickly informed, the situation was a typical programming device used by all the networks from time to time and because it always worked, at least in the short run, the networks kept using it. Essentially their concept called for them to toss a random bunch of totally inexperienced outworlders into a situation that was nearly impossible to survive in and then toss some extra trouble their way so that the network viewers got their daily fix of instant gratification. In my opinion the networks were just being a bunch of pinheaded jerks and I let everyone know exactly how I felt when I learned of this mission. Nobody argued with me on the point, including the trio.

The girls and their coaches were in serious trouble when I finally reached them. They were inside their bus trying to keep a troop of brutes out of it. These guys made Dork look good. I don't know what alternative Earth that Gold Network had recruited them from but these guys were big and brawny and very hairy. In fact they were so hairy that they weren't wearing any clothing and to any casual observers they looked more like apes then men.

These ape-men were armed with rocks and clubs made from animal bones and broken tree limbs and they were making good use of them. Some of the group were using their clubs to bash in anything shiny and made of glass or plastic on the bus while others in the group were throwing the rocks they were clutching at the bus in the hopes of breeching it. Most of the rocks hit the soft skin of the crippled vehicle and bounced back after a resounding bang only to be picked up and thrown again. Some smashed through the glass windows of the bus sending shards of broken glass everywhere and setting off the girls inside the bus who were shrieking their lungs out. Thankfully, these guys weren't very bright.

Of course I made certain that I arrived at a safe distance from the bus and the group of ape-men. I also ensured that my strike team was spread out behind me, just in case I needed their help.

I tried diplomacy first. Unlike my mission in Araknis and my encounter with Lord Robert and his band of bodyguards, I had nothing against these brutes personally. I knew from the briefing by Mai Woo that they came from an alternative Earth that had never climbed out of the Neolithic age and that the denizens of that world were a throwback species that was closer to the missing link than Homo erectus. My attempt failed.

I'd grunted, "Hey you, leave them alone," in their own language. The only affect it had was to attract their attention away from the bus and put it on me. For a moment they just stood there about the bus and scratched their collective heads and babbled amongst themselves. Then someone in the band decided to show everyone else that he was big and brave. He turned towards me and charged. There was several hundred feet between us and I wasn't overly concerned. The brute was clutching a rock and when he'd run about a hundred feet or so, he heaved back and threw the rock at me. Fortunately, for this mission I had my big round shield and my longsword instead of my bow. The rock rose in the air and then came down towards me. It hit my shield with a bang and then fell away.

The brute just stood there and grunted and glared at me as did the other ape-men in the troop. They did nothing more until I took a step towards them. Then they went ape-shit.

The lead ape-man started shouting at the other ape-men to get me and the other ape-men answered his call to arms with a bellow of outrage and a little chest beating before they did anything else. When that was over with several of the more dominant ape-men rushed towards me. They were still clutching rocks in their massive hands. They ran forward until they got close enough to throw them at me. Then they did just that. They stopped and threw their rocks and stood there while they arced up through the air and then came back down, plummeting towards me, only to hit my shield and bounce harmlessly away. That pissed them off and they immediately called for their friends with the clubs to get me.

The five brutes with clubs grunted, "Pound with club" a couple of times as they ran towards me. I just drew my longsword and waited. The brute that reached me first raised his club high above his head as he got close to me, intending to wallop me with his weapon. I didn't let him. As his club came down, I threw up my shield letting it take the blow. A deafening 'clang' rang out when the wood hit the metal startling the rest of the troop. What startled them even more was when I snuck my longsword around the edge of the shield and plunged it into the brute's belly. That brought the other four skidding to a halt. Unfortunately for the brute next in line it was too late to save him. As I pulled my blade out of the belly of the first brute, I stepped to my left in preparation to meet the next in the group attacking me. As the brute skidded to a halt, my longsword was already sweeping towards him from the side. The end of the blade slipped in under his raised arms and cut through him just below his ribs. As I continue past him the blade came out his front and he keeled over in a heap.

That was it for the confrontation. The leader of the troop grunted 'let's get out of here' and a moment later the whole troop was heading for the hills and a nearby forest. My strike team didn't even loose an arrow at them. We just stood there and watched them go and it didn't take them long to get out of sight. When they were gone, I quickly cleaned off my sword and then put it back into my scabbard. When I was done, I approached the bus.

"Hello," I shouted out in English. "Are you okay in there?"

The answer to my question was the flinging open of the emergency door at the back of the bus and the sudden appearance of a tall, blonde, athletic looking woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. She was wearing a purple and silver coloured tracksuit with a white t-shirt under the jacket. The jacket was emblazoned with the name of their school. It said 'Harper Valley High School'. The woman beamed at me when she saw me.

"Thank you," she cried out from the emergency exit. "Thank you so much for saving us. We didn't know what to do. Those apes came out of nowhere and they wanted to get at us. You saved us all."

"You're welcome," I said back to the woman, coming to a halt a dozen feet or so from the back of the bus. By now there were a couple of other heads trying to peek around the woman and through the broken windows at the back of the bus. I smiled at them and waved before going on.

"So are you all okay in there?" I asked once more.

"Mr. Edwards, the bus driver is dead," the woman responded, her face shadowing over as she said this, "and a few of the girls have some deep cuts that are going to need stitches, but I think that is it. Of course, we'll know more once we get to a hospital and get checked out. Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to have a working cell phone. None of our phones seem to be working and we've been trying to call for help for the last half hour."

"Your cell phones won't work here," I told the woman, chuckling softly as I did, "and there isn't a hospital within a thousand miles of here or any kind of emergency services. Basically you're on your own, except for me and my people and I've got other places to be today. If you want, I can take you someplace safe that you can get looked after but that'll be it."

"But what do you mean, that'll be it?" the woman said looking at me with concern. "Who are you and more importantly, where are we?"

"Well," I replied, "to keep things easy for you to understand, my name is Charles and I'm sort of a travelling hero who often comes to the rescue of damsels in distress, which you and your cheer squad are and to put it bluntly, you're on Game World, which is an alternate Earth in an alternate universe and there is no going home. Now if you want help you need to trust me. I will take you somewhere safe, where you'll be looked after and fed and sheltered, and all your questions will get answered, although probably not to your satisfaction. But I won't be doing the explaining or helping you out and that is what I mean by 'that'll be it'. My friends will help you but I've got other people to rescue today and the clock is ticking. So what will it be?"

The woman, whose name I learned later to be Ms. Elizabeth Wilson decided that any help was better than no help even if she didn't believe a word that I told her. It didn't matter. The moment she agreed to accept my assistance that was it. There was a blink of light again and then the bus was gone as were the two coaches and the twenty cheerleaders who were in it. A second later the bus was standing by the waterfront in Oak Hall and the welcome wagon took over for me. Again I and my team headed up to the keep to find Mai Woo and to get our next assignment.