Chapter 60

It took us three days of hard riding to get where I wanted to go so that I could fulfill my promise to Nimue. For the most part we rode in silence with everyone tied up with their own thoughts and concerns. Our trek took us southwest and then due west through rugged woodlands and open fields until we reached the ocean. Once we got there we headed south again, keeping to the bluffs and avoiding the beach. It was slow going and it was near dusk on the third day when we spotted what I was looking for. When the others saw it, people stopped and gaped.

"What is it my mate?" Kola asked in a low, tentative voice.

"I can't believe it!" Felicity declared before I could reply.

"What can't you believe?" Dork wanted to know a second later.

"It's impossible," Mai Woo gasped aloud, speaking for the first time since Nimue had threatened to kill her. "It just can't be."

"But it can," I chuckled in response, "and it is."

"But how can it be?" Caitlin inquired softly. "It just doesn't fit."

What we were looking at was a resort. The complex stood roughly a mile or so away and from where we had stopped our horses, the place was easily visible to the naked eye. With my spy glass we could see it even better. The whole place stood on a low, flat stretch of land roughly a quarter mile from the shoreline. Between it and the water were white sand and dunes. The complex itself was actually quite small in comparison to some resorts I knew back on my own Earth. Still it was impressive to look at. The complex consisted of a three story central building that faced onto the ocean. To the side closest to us were several single story bungalows and a very large swimming pool. There were also a couple of tennis courts. On the far side of the central building stood a ten story tower that curved outwards and away from the main building and around the landward sides of the complex stood a golf course. There were people on the golf course and by the pool and on the beach. Most of the people by the pool and on the beach were young women, while those on the golf course looked to be big, fat men.

"It's a resort," I told those who didn't know what it was, "for senior executives of the networks."

"You've got to be kidding?" Felicity said shaking her head in disbelief as she spoke the words.

"What is a resort?" Kola asked me before I had a chance to respond to Felicity. Her question drew the interest of Nimue, Dork, and Goiania as well.

"A resort is a place where people go to relax and enjoy themselves without worrying about work or taking care of their immediate needs such as feeding themselves." I told them instructively. "In this case, the people at the resort represent the top level management of the networks."

A smile crossed several peoples' faces when I said that.

"You mean that the people over there are the bastards that sent us to this planet?" Dork asked, grinning at me as he did. When I nodded yes, he smiled even more and continued by asking, "and we're going to get the opportunity to mess with their lives."

"Yes my friend," I told him and the others, "that is exactly what we're going to do."

"But this can't be," Mai Woo muttered in protest, "No one from my Earth comes to Game World except for work and then only a few of us at the most."

"Like Miranda and Peter?" I stated questioningly as I glanced over at the young woman.

"But they were banished here," Mai Woo stated in a matter of fact manner, gazing up at me as she did, "and you're saying that the people there are here voluntarily; that they're here on vacation. That can't be. Nobody gets a vacation on my Earth. You're either working or you're at home watching Game World and nothing else. Besides my people have an aversion to being in large groups and outside away from the safety of our homes."

"Wrong," I said shaking my head in a negative manner. "What you're talking about is what the networks and the politicians and what the corporations want you to believe. It is very true that there are no vacations for the bulk of your society. Considering the fact that your planet is essentially dead, long stripped of breathable air and clean water and places that grew green, I can appreciate why that is so. However that is limited to the masses and not to the people running your Earth and Game World. Those people go on vacation all the time and they do it here."

"But..." Mai Woo started to protest again and then she stopped and lowered her eyes and shook her head. I sighed in response and for a moment and only a moment I felt sorry for her.

"But Charles," Felicity asked, interrupting me before I could say anything to the young woman, "how long have you known about this place."

"Since before I came to Game World," I told her and the others bluntly.

"And you've never mentioned it before now?" Nimue snapped at me. As she spoke she turned her eyes away from the complex and put them on me. Her brow was furrowed with anger.

"I didn't say anything before now," I told her honestly but firmly, "for several reasons Nimue. One important reason was the fact that until recently we hadn't access to this place. Without the help of the consortium it would have taken us forever to reach this place. It was only once the consortium started teleporting us about that we could even get near it."

"Okay," Nimue growled back, "I'll give you that, but we've been bouncing about via the consortium for over a month now so why haven't we come here before now?"

"Because my love," I said softly and patiently, sighing as I did, "there was no way that the consortium would have put us down near this location if I had asked. They might be willing to do us favours for exclusives but they aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to their own government and the interests of the corporations that back them on their Earth. If I had asked them to do it before, they would have refused to help and they would have alerted everyone else that I knew where their secret resort was and if that happened, we would never have gotten even this close. Besides, while that place over there looks open to attack, it isn't. The people who run it take care to make certain that none of their guests are bothered by indigenous animals or people. They've got a small army of security robots patrolling the perimeter and those robots are armed with firearms."

"But they can't be," Mai Woo cried out in protest once more. "It's against regulations."

"They know that," I muttered in reply, "and they don't care. You have to remember this: they're the people who make the rules. It doesn't mean they actually have to follow the rules."

"So," Dork asked, hefting his warhammer as he did, "does that mean that these jammers will get us pass the robots."

"I'm hoping they will," I told the man, "because if they don't, then that complex will flee before we get our hands on them."

"But there must be thousands of people over there in that resort," Felicity pointed out. "How would they all teleport out so quickly."

"There are around four thousand and twenty people over there," I informed them, "although not all of them are from the alternative Earth. Over half that number are locals working there, all of them slaves or outworlders kidnapped and kept here for the amusement of the visiting guests until somebody gets bored with them and they ship them out to be sold at auction somewhere else on Game World. Besides a few hundred technicians and employees who are permanently stationed here, we're actually looking at roughly fourteen hundred guests.

"That still doesn't explain how they'd all get away so fast if an alarm was sounded," Felicity noted, looking from me to Mai Woo, "unless there's something you haven't told us yet about the place."

There was a lot that I hadn't told them yet about the resort and I told her so and then I promised to explain everything later that night. Before then we needed to move out and find ourselves a camp for the night. Luckily it didn't take that long. We rode back down the hill that we'd been atop and headed back east for a mile or so until we came upon a dry cut that ran south towards the area that the resort was in. The cut was wide enough that we could ride two abreast down its length. The cut meandered for a couple of miles and ended up in a wide forested ravine that backed onto the golf course that lay east of the resort. There was a stream running through the place and I decided it was perfect for our needs. We quickly dismounted and picketed our horses amongst the trees that sheltered the ravine and then we unsaddled them and our pack horses. After that I delegated people to take care of setting up the camp while I went and had another look at the resort. For this I brought Nimue along with me to watch my back.

We left behind our shields and swords and most of our extra armour. We took our bows and knives but that was it. Nimue also brought the pistol that I had given her when she and Felicity had gone off on their own to look for her sister. The trek towards the golf course didn't take us long. We moved into the forest that filled the ravine and worked our way through it and the thin brush that cluttered between the trunks of the trees. After a couple hundred feet we climbed up the western slope of the ravine. The wall was only fifty feet high and we both climbed it without any problems.

"We'll need to keep quiet," I told Nimue as we neared the top of the slope. "While the jammers will keep the security robots from detecting us unless they stumble over us, there is always the possibility that someone human might be about and our voices might carry."

Nimue nodded her understanding. With that said we moved up to the very edge of the slope and after a moment's look about, we found ourselves a patch of brush that was growing nearby that we could use as a hide. Once settled in I pulled out my spy glass and had a look about. I didn't really see much. It was already dark and while there was light overhead from a partial moon, it was still too hard to discern much even with my enhanced vision. On the plus side, the lights coming off the resort illuminated the immediate surroundings in the vicinity of the buildings for us to spot some movement. It became clear that there were people about even after nightfall. Who they were was a matter of conjecture but I doubted that they were friendly. We did spot a couple of robots moving about the periphery of the golf course. The bots 'rode' in a special all terrain carriage that carried them about in silence. The vehicles were obviously electric and my guess was that they were powered by the robot or the robot was powered by them. Either way, the vehicles moved slowly and the bots rode along scanning their surroundings both visually and aurally. We also noticed that the robots were all armed. The ones Nimue and I saw were armed with automatic carbines that they carried at the ready at all times.

Eventually we worked our way back into the ravine and then back to where the camp had been set up. At my insistence the camp was cold. We drank fresh water from the stream that flowed through the ravine and we ate a meal of fruit and nuts and meat that we'd smoked the day before. When we were done eating we gathered about and I told them the rest of the information that I knew.

The first thing I told them was that the resort had its own teleportation system. The facility was in the subbasement of the resort's central structure. I then explained that upon arriving on Game World, as a security precaution, every guest is given a wristband alarm that sort of looked like the jammers that we were wearing. If a registered guest got in trouble, all they needed to do was to hit the button and the transporter station in the resort subbasement would lock on to them and teleport them back home and out of danger.

"So we need to hit that location first," Dork muttered gruffly, voicing what everyone else was thinking.

"We most certainly do," I agreed with an acknowledging grin and then I went on to explain my plans.

We went to bed on a high note that night. For the first time in a long time everyone felt like we were actually about to achieve something positive. At the very least, people knew that they were going to get a little payback for what the bastards from the other Earth had done to them. The only one amongst us who wasn't happy was Mai Woo. I could understand why considering that it was her people that we were about to descend upon, but I certainly felt no sympathy for her. As a precaution I warned everyone to keep an eye on the young woman until we went into action and I put Felicity in charge of her when we did. I didn't want her deciding to betray us at the last minute.

We didn't attack the next day. Instead we did some more reconnaissance of the approaches to the resort. There were actually several routes that we could use to reach the central structure depending on what direction we came from and how much of a risk we were willing to take. At the same time we got our first good look at the guests of the resort. They were predominantly male, old, and over weight. Dozens came out and played golf throughout the day attended upon by nubile slave girls of varying ages and ethnicity. They moved from one hole to another in golf carts that looked similar in design to what the robots had been driving around in. As for the robots, their presence was noted as well. With more people out on the links, there were more security robots moving about.

By the end of the day we were ready to move out. I had briefed everyone on what we needed to do and I had made certain that we were all equipped for the job at hand. That part of the day drew even more concerns from Mai Woo when we got to it. The reason was simple: I gave people firearms to use on the raid.

An interesting thing had occurred while we had been off playing games in the Gulf of the Twelve Kingdoms and in the waters off Temasek and Ingrid's Reach. Rory and his team of searchers had found the transport aircraft that the consortium had identified for me amongst all the vehicles within a five hundred mile radius of Oak Hall. That transport turned out to be a military transport filled up with all kinds of interesting toys and I had picked up a few of them while I had stopped off at Oak Hall to return our dead from Tobago.

Unfortunately we had no time to train anyone in their use to any professional degree so I had to be selective in what I gave people to use. Fortunately the weapon cache on the aircraft had been varied and I was able to pick and chose as needed. I took a fully equipped assault carbine with an under-barrel grenade launcher. I gave another assault carbine to Felicity. My dark skinned mate already knew how to use one. As for Kola, Caitlin, and Nimue, I gave them all automatic pistols. Nimue knew how to use the weapon from the training I had given her on the semi-automatic that I had loaned her. She took charge of her two sister-wives and ran them through the basics while I took care of Dork and Goiania. For them I gave out a matching pair of assault shotguns. I figured that they were the least complicated weapons for them to use in a crunch. I spent an hour running through the basics and then had them dry fire the weapons while I called out threats and targets. They got the idea very quickly. The only person I didn't arm was Mai Woo. Like I said earlier, I didn't trust her at all.

We headed out just before nightfall with Nimue in the lead. Just because we now had firearms didn't mean that we didn't take our other kit with us. Everyone was decked out in their armour. Given that we were all wearing high-tech stuff, I was happy about that. We also brought along our blade weapons to use if necessary, especially my throwing knives. None of the firearms had silencers on them. I might need a knife or two before we got through with the night. Dork naturally brought his warhammer. I was certain that it would make a good can opener if we ran into a robot or two. As for our shields we left those behind in our encampment along with all our bows and arrows. The only person to take a bow was Nimue and as I said she was on point for our trek into the resort.

We had one other small advantage in our favour heading into this fight. The resort wasn't monitored by the other Earth like the rest of Game World was monitored. The fat cats and bastards that came here to have their fun had no desire for the rest of Mai Woo's world to learn about what they were up to here. We still needed our jammers to get close enough to infiltrate the place but at the very worse we'd have to deal with what security there was on the ground only. Unless the resort called for help, there would be no one watching on their Earth to raise the alarm and come to their rescue.

We headed back down the ravine towards the cut first. A mile or so away from our camp was another narrower cut that swung westward around the golf course and towards the flat upon which the main buildings stood. The cut was wide enough for us to follow it single file; however as it progressed towards the resort the depth decreased. About half way towards the resort we needed to crouch to keep from being seen and three-quarters of the way there we couldn't even do that. Fortunately as the cut swung past the golf course and towards the resort, there were more and more trees and shrubbery planted between it and anyone looking towards it from the resort and the golf course. It helped us get to within a hundred feet of the main building.