Massively Multiplayer Read Online Free Page A

blowpipe to its lips and felled another tiny figure. Little people scampered forward, waving their arms in argument. Other figures ran around, trying to trace the outcry. The owner of the hands pursed his lips. Bad design, he thought. But an interesting play.
    “Volume up window five, twenty-five percent.” He listened to the argument. He watched the faces closely. Eventually, two tiny figures escaped pursuit and walked up a road toward a coastal town.
    “Close window five.”
    The owner of the hands leaned back. Before him, hovering in the air, was a green block with the words “Druin the Reaver” on it. Threads of light connected the block to other blocks of various colors, including one which pulsed an ominous red.
    Why hadn’t the thief died? He’d been woefully under-prepared for the degree of opposition he was facing. He’d raised up the whole place with his ridiculous attack on the slaver. Hell, it was a wonder his whole team hadn’t turned on him, cut his legs out from under and left him bleeding in the tunnel to throw off their pursuers. Bu they hadn’t. They’d rallied, instead, helped get him out of the stupid, stupid predicament he’d gotten himself into.
    And that, of course, was why the thief hadn’t died: because he had a knack. Not for combat, and certainly not for thievery…no, he had a knack for getting people to stick together, for getting them to cooperate when logically they should have turned on one another. Maybe it was the helpless puppy-dog face, maybe it was the unthinkingly noble behavior, but whatever it was, it worked.
    “Hmm. Odd. A thief who doesn’t act like a thief. Desk, flag file seventy-three, further interest.” The block labeled “Druin the Reaver” obligingly turned orange.
    The long-fingered hands reached up and shuffled the block off to one side, in a pile of similar orange blocks.
    “Continue scan.”
    The floating lights of the display flared. New windows opened. New threads linked new blocks together in an intricate web. The hands went back to work.
     

Chapter 2 – Monopoly
    "So, I hear the new boss is coming in today."
    "Hardly new, Henry. Calloway bought us out five months ago."
    "Still, he only showed once for the signing, didn’t he? Had his accountants here to settle up. What's he coming down today for, anyhow? Thought he lived in New York, overlooking his stock market."
    "He does, normally. But I expect he's here to oversee the new software release."
    "Huh. Funny. I mean, it's not like he knows computers himself, right?"
    "No, I don't think so. But his people took over the project, so I guess he has some personal stake in it. And it’s a public-relations event."
    "Sure, but it's not like he'll understand any more of the real guts of the thing than I do. You computer types...you're all a mystery. Here's your floor."
    "Thanks. I'll see you later, Henry."
    "See you, Mr. Wallace."
     
    Wolfgang Wallace was a mystery to a lot of people. He was no-one's stereotypical idea of a computer technician. He didn't wear glasses and he dressed well. He was heavyset, over six and a half feet tall, with a permanently hangdog expression accentuated by a neatly trimmed mustache. More than once he had wondered whether his meteoric rise at Archimago Technologies was due less to his skills than to the fact that he so completely violated people's expectations of what a computer programmer should look like. Perhaps they had sped him into management in order to get him out of the trenches before he gave the other nerds a bad name.
    Wolfgang had spent the better part of his life thwarting others' expectations of him. His mother had named him after Mozart, certain that she had given birth to a musical prodigy. Her theory even had support, of sorts: his father was second violin in the Seattle symphony orchestra, and she herself, as she so often reminded him, had once served as secretary to the city's opera company.
    Alas, little Wolfgang showed more interest in the computer which