Chapter 46

I slept poorly that night as did my mates and we all woke in a foul mood that just wouldn't go away. The reason was that we were all still pissed at how things had gone in Panwan. All of us wanted to strike back at Onyx Network and pay them back for the mess they'd made of things, but none of us could think of a way to do it that was both feasible and satisfying. The big problem was that we all understood that what we'd been doing for the last few days had only a short term effect on the reality that was Game World and that if we wanted to put a stop to networks like Onyx and Bronze, we needed to cause them some permanent long term pain.

I left my mates at breakfast and went and met with Elsa, Dupree, Talbot, and Danvers. We met in Lord Barnabas' private office. It was a bit cramped with the five of us in it but we weren't there for long. As it turned out there wasn't much to say. Talbot was up and about which was a plus but he wasn't one hundred percent. As for the rest, they were exhausted both physically and emotionally. Elsa told me that in addition to the two hundred odd Wu Chin warriors that we'd killed and wounded yesterday, the Onyx attack on the palace had left another fifty people dead. Of course the one thing that the other four agreed on was that it wasn't my fault. I didn't say anything about that because I knew the truth. The fact is that if you poked at something long enough the chances were there that it would eventually poke back. Last night Onyx had poked back and I hadn't been ready for it. The question was; what would they do next. Elsa was the first to raise the point.

"So what do we do now?" Elsa asked in a tired voice, "Do we put an end to the attack on Onyx or do we try different tactics?"

"We certainly won't be stopping our attacks," I declared firmly before anyone else could say a word, "but we are going to have to think about doing things differently. In simple words Onyx has shown us that they're willing to play hard ball regardless of the consequences. I spoke to Mai Woo before coming here this morning and last night's counterattack earned Onyx some big viewing points. It seems that even when the consortium has an exclusive, there are ways around it and one of those ways was bombarding that building. The scary part is that the people on the alternate Earth didn't even blink an eye when it happened. They just sat there and watched it and enjoyed it."

"The fucking bastards," Dupree muttered through clenched teeth. "We should go there and give their world a taste of what they've been watching. Maybe that will wake them up."

"I wish we could," I said in agreement, "but we can't. That would require the consortium teleporting us to their world and they won't do it. They'll toe the line and help us out so long as they get exclusives but that is it."

"Which brings us back to Elsa's original question," James Danvers stated. "What are we going to do now that they've shown that they can hit us anytime they want to go after us? Do we sit around and wait for them to do it or do we take the fight to them?"

"I say we take the fight to them," William Talbot declared forcefully. "I'd like a chance to get back at the bastards."

"And you will," I told him truthfully, "when Felicity gives you a clean bill of health. Until then practice with your crossbow and your sword and shield and be ready for when I call for you. As for what we will be doing next, we still need to prepare for the raids on Minos and I've got a few side trips planned that I hope will show Onyx and the rest of the networks that I'm not going to back down because some assholes can drop rocks on my head whenever they want to try it."

I didn't get into the side trips that I was planning when the others pushed for information from me but I did end up discussing some of the details related to the raid on Minos. As it turned out not everyone in the group was happy about what I was planning to do. The big problem was that I was going to leave Elsa Mueller and Glenn Dupree behind at Oak Hall. As I reminded them they were both important members of the community with responsibilities that they couldn't avoid. It still didn't make either of them happy.

What made me happy was news that Elsa gave after the meeting. One of her men, a Peter Richards, had dropped by her tent that morning and he had given her some interesting news. Elsa told me that Peter had been a communications expert on his old world and that he'd been over to all the vehicles that I'd gathered together in the last few days to see if there was anything there that could be salvaged and used by us. It turned out that amongst all kinds of radios, CD and DVD players, and other nifty electronic toys, that there were three functioning CB radios and they were just waiting to be made use of by us. I smiled at the thought of what the systems meant to us. Naturally Elsa had her thoughts on the matter as well. She thought that we could station a vehicle with a CB at the settlement furthest to the west and we could do the same to the east and put a vehicle there with the Wu Chin. Then with a vehicle in Oak Hall working as a base station we'd have a functioning early warning system. I agreed with her on that and then asked her about keeping the batteries charged in the vehicles, especially once the fuel ran out and we couldn't run the vehicles to charge the batteries. That was when Elsa told me that her electrician had put together a bicycle style charging system back on the big island when he first arrived there and they had cannibalized his vehicle for lights and power. Then she told me that they had swapped out that system, once the man had worked out a way to charge the batteries with a windmill. That was when my imagination kicked in and I told her what I wanted to do with the CBs.

I wanted them mounted on the Windrunner and the Minoan bireme and one of the junks. I told her that the semaphore system worked to a point but that radio communications would make my life easier the next time I put to sea, which as I pointed out to her was going to be soon. Elsa wasn't happy with my thoughts on the matter but she agreed that in the short term it would certainly help me during the upcoming raid and now that Onyx was hitting back at us, it was probably a good idea. She promised to get her technicians working on stripping them off the vehicles that they were currently mounted on and then she'd put them to work mounting them on the ships once as they became available.

Talking to Elsa, Glenn, Talbot, and Danvers had gotten me thinking and those thoughts made me call for another meeting in Lord Barnabas' office. This time I called my trio of unwanted guests into a conference. As usual, I demanded that it be private.

"I don't need to tell you three about how I'm feeling right now," I told them all in a firm but cold manner. "I'm pissed at Onyx and I'm pissed at your people back on your Earth and so is every other person in Oak Hall. Personally, if I was you, I'd make myself scarce today. Unfortunately, it probably won't happen because I have work for you three. I've decided that we need to accelerate my plan for Game World and the way things are done here."

"My lord," Mai Woo gasped with surprise, voicing the look that was on all of their faces. "What do you mean by 'accelerate' your plan?"

"It's simple," I told them in a manner that even they could follow. "Last night's fiasco demonstrated to me that my endeavours have done nothing besides save a lot of lives, which is a plus as far as I'm concerned. It has also pissed off networks like Onyx, Gold, and Bronze and demonstrated that these networks have no qualms about killing off people just for a point here or there in the rating game and what it has truly demonstrated is that your people back on your Earth don't care one way or another. To me it says that what I've been doing isn't working."

"But your ratings are the highest..." Mai Woo started to say.

"They may be the highest your Earth has ever seen," I said cutting the young woman off, "but the fact is that your people aren't getting the message that I'm trying to send to them and that is why we need to accelerate my plans. The fact is that I can't do this alone. I need help and the only help that I can think of is yours and the consortiums."

"Really," the three intoned as one, their eyes going wide with surprise.

"Yes," I stated bluntly, "really!"

"But what can we do to help you," Mai Woo asked, looking a little concerned, "besides what we've been doing so far?"

At that question I pulled out a bunch of folders from my satchel that I'd brought along with me to the meeting and that I had put down on the top of Lord Barnabas' desk when I'd sat down. Amongst the folders were the three proposals that Angela Kent had provided me concerning the new programs that she wanted to implement. I held them up first and then handed them to her.

"I've looked these over and I have annotated them with a few minor changes and suggestions," I told the woman. "I want these pushed into production immediately."

"My lord," Angela Kent muttered softly as she opened the files and started to look them over.

"These three programs and others that I'm about to tell you about are going to be my primary tool in bringing down the other networks," I told the woman and the other two bluntly. "I want every viewer on your Earth watching the consortium's programs. I intend to blanket your airwaves with dozens of new programs in the next month and given what you've told me about your viewers I'm expecting the results to be spectacular."

"Dozens of new programs," Angela Kent exclaimed with a bit of a squeak and a lot of concern in her voice. "What programming is this lord? I haven't come up with anything other than these three new shows."

"But I have," I told the woman. "Mai Woo has provided viewer statistics for me to review. I've gone over them and I've found a lot of interesting facts that you and your colleagues back on your Earth have missed. One of the things that I've learnt is that there are a wider number of viewing groups than your specialty networks suggest. By just looking at my own viewing numbers I've determined that there is a fraction of your population that is into watching people survive in the wilderness and in particular, they're interested in watching people hunting and fishing. In fact, according to the numbers Mai Woo gave me, there were almost three million viewers' planet wide who tuned in while I was teaching Kola how to use a bow and how to hunt. That number may be a small fraction of the total viewing base on your planet, but if the consortium controlled that percentage then it would boost the consortiums overall share of the market and it would eliminate competition."

At that point I handed Angela Kent three more folders. Immediately she took them and started rifling through them.

"Those are three other programs that I want you to implement immediately," I told the woman drawing her attention back to me and not the papers I had given her. "The first is called 'Wilderness Man'. I know from my own world that a story about surviving in the wilds of some far off place always garners interest. You'll find someone with wilderness experience and offer him the chance of a lifetime. Allow him to kit himself out with anything he wants, except for firearms, and then set him down in a region like the plains near where I was dropped off. Let him live off the land and when he does good, you can give him a reward. The next program is called the 'Hunt'. This program allows for a more focused viewer base. You offer a hunter from an alternate Earth the opportunity of hunting something that hasn't been seen on his Earth in millions of years. You bring him here and equip him with a selection of weapons other than firearms that will do the job of bringing down the hunter's prey and then you let him loose and see what he can do. Naturally this one will require recruiting more than one hunter over the course of the program. By having several hunters on call, you can team them up when the need arises and you can have them competing against each other. You can also include a segment called 'The Kill of the Week'. That will allow you to highlight your various hunters and recap how they did on their hunts and it will draw in even more viewers because everyone will want to know whether their favourite hunter was the best that week. In essence it builds up a fan base."

"Wow!" the trio exclaimed as one, their eyes glazing over with the thought of what I was suggesting would do for their Earth's viewing habits. I just shook my head and continued.

"The last folder represents another type of program that I want you to pursue," I told Angela bluntly. "I call it 'The Quest' and while the name might not be very original, the concept probably is for your traditional viewer base. I've looked at some of the information on Game World that Mai Woo has provided me and I've found that there have been several kingdoms and empires that have risen and fallen over the millenniums that your people have run the planet and seeing this has given me an idea. My own Earth has a long history of treasure hunters who often called themselves archaeologists. They travelled my world in search of lost cities and fortunes and the stories of their adventures filled volumes of books and hours of film and videos. I want the same to happen here. I want you to recruit a band of adventurers who are willing to go looking for lost cities and such and then equip them and let them loose on Game World. In that folder I've identified a number of possible treasures and relics that the band of adventures could go after and I've included notes on where they can find enough information to begin their adventure. One in particular looked very interesting to me. The Qulin Empire existed on Game World twelve hundred years ago. At its peak it controlled over a million citizens spread through a dozen walled cities. Of all the cities in the empire the capital was the finest. It had temples and stylish villas and a vast mausoleum complex that housed the dead of the royal family. It was destroyed by a combination of events and the result of those events was the loss of where Qulin actually stood. If a band of adventures went looking for it, I'm certain that you will pull in millions of viewers from other networks."

Again I just got a glazed look in response to what I was telling them and I had to chuckle about it, knowing that what I was suggesting was going to throw their Earth's idea of viewing on its ear and silently I hoped it would do more than just that.

"This last folder is a list of other programs that I want you to look at," I told Angela handing over the last folder that I'd brought with me to the meeting. "I haven't put in the same amount of effort into these ideas as the ones that I've told you about, but I do think that each of them would add to the overall viewing strength of the consortium. There are ideas for cooking shows and craft shows. I noted that there were small niches of viewers on your Earth that liked to focus their watching on certain activities. Individually they don't add up to much, however a specialty network within the consortium that focused on these niches would be able to develop more interest in those activities and with careful programming they could draw in more viewers. I highly recommend pursuing the idea."

"We will my lord," Angela told me enthusiastically.

"Good," I said in acknowledgement, "and while you're at it there are two more things that you need to focus on while implementing these new ideas. The first is tying in as many of the other networks into the programming as possible. As I pointed out in my concept 'The Quest' should have each network within the consortium recruit a volunteer for the team of adventurers and ensure that they highlight that individual during their viewing of the program. We must ensure that every network in the consortium gets a piece of the pie. The other thing that you need to do is to set up an acclimatization program for all recruits coming to Game World."

"What kind of program my lord?" Angela Kent asked with a look of confusion erasing the enthusiasm that had been there a moment before.

"An acclimatization program," I repeated with a sigh. "I know it is hard for you people to understand this, but dumping someone on Game World without equipment or training or any preparation is just stupid and wasteful. I've studied the numbers of outworlders that you've sent here in the last millennium. You've had thirty odd networks sending anywhere from twelve to twenty-four outworlders a day to Game World of which ninety percent die in the first couple of hours. That works out to over a quarter million people a year of which most died from one cause or another before the day was out. To me it is stupid and callous and it is certainly criminal. What I'm proposing is that all new recruits are brought to a safe zone on Game World so they can prepare themselves for the hardships that they can expect to experience here. For now I propose bringing them to Oak Hall; however as the number of new programs go on the air and the number of new recruits start to climb, we can decentralize the program. I'm certain other networks will want to offer their cities and territory up as training venues once everyone sees the benefit of the program. The great thing about the program is you can run it as an add-on to whatever program that the recruits are preparing for. Anyone coming to Game World for 'Pirate Quest' can learn to sail a ship under the tutelage of Tagus or his quartermaster and they can learn to use a sword from Tobias. Then after a week or two of training and preparation, the recruit can then go off to try their hand at whatever adventure that they agreed to participate in with a semblance of a chance of succeeding. It will guarantee that the recruit will survive for more than an hour or two and it will cut down on the number of people that you need to recruit and import in a year, and finally, viewers will develop a relationship with the recruit and perhaps they will start looking forward to them succeeding instead of watching just to see someone die. What do you think?"

They all thought it was a fantastic idea and they said so. I sent them all back to work after that. I told Sydney White that I wanted more networks onboard as soon as possible and he assured me that he was working on it. The three smaller networks that had shown interest had already signed up and he was now chasing a couple of others. The big problem was the larger networks like Onyx, Gold, and Bronze. They were filing claims with the regulatory board claiming that the consortium was attempting to establish a monopoly over Game World and they were trying to shut us down. At present the consortium's lawyers were holding them at bay. I told him bluntly not to trust the lawyers and that his job was to recruit every other network onto our side. It was the only way to ensure that we would win in the end."

Our meeting did end on a happy note. As it was breaking up, Mai Woo informed me that the consortium had just informed her that Rory and Zahra had just reached the first vehicle that they'd gone after and that after a quick inspection, Rory had claimed it in my name. The consortium had then teleported it from where it had been resting to the vehicle park that I'd established outside the city walls to the west. The vehicle, a pickup truck with camper and a boat trailer had just arrived.

I sent immediate word to Elsa telling her to get her technicians to meet me at the vehicle. Rory and Zahra had scrubbed my original plan of sending experts out with them when we learned that the consortium would provide transportation for us once someone claimed the vehicles in my name. As Rory put it, unless the vehicle was already stripped of everything down to the frame, he'd just send the whole thing to us via the consortium and what we didn't need could be junked in Oak Hall rather than waste time doing it in situ and I had ended up agreeing with him that it made sense. It also made travel between sites faster and easier since Rory and Zahra didn't need to drag wagons and sleds with them as we'd originally planned to do. Instead the two of them were travelling with a four person security detail and that was it. They were all mounted and they had enough provisions that they could stay out for at least a month. With luck, now that Rory had sent the closest vehicle to us, he'd be able to gather up the other vehicles that were close to us in that period of time. We'd have to see. For now I hurried to the stables and saddled my big grey. Once that was done I rode out of Oak Hall and headed to the vehicle park that we'd created.

The car park was situated to the west of the city beyond the fields that had been planted just beyond the city walls. A broad rutted track ran through the area from the city gates to the fields and the orchards and the new settlements towards the coast. We'd parked all the personal vehicles on one side of the track and all the commercial vehicles on the other side. That was where the wrecked school bus sat and the tractor-trailer combo.

As I approached it I noticed that the area was a hive of activity. There were at least three wagons stationed beside the parked vehicles and a dozen or more people milling about looking busy. Some were under the hood of the vehicles working on something and others were inside the vehicles, stripping things out of them and carrying those items towards the wagons. There was even someone who had containers that looked like jerry cans who was siphoning the fuel out of a couple of wrecks. I also noted that Elsa was here already.

"Have you looked at the new arrival yet?" I asked the woman as I dismounted my horse and tethered it to the front grill of a 4x4 truck.

"Not yet," Elsa told me, giving me a smile on seeing me. "I was waiting for you to show up."

With that we walked over to the new arrival. The sight of it put a smile on my face. What made me smile was the fact that the pickup truck was a Tucker Range Rider III which was a pretty popular make on my world. In fact I had owned one at one stage of my previous life. To me the Range Rider was a good truck. As I looked it over, examining the damage to it and the obvious wear and tear that I could see, I silently I wondered what had happened to the vehicles occupant. Regrettably it didn't take too long to find out.