The Yanti Read online

  Hector raised a hand. “I’ve played it for hundreds of hours. The game does resemble the scenario you’ve laid out for her invasion. At the same time, that begs the question. Why would she go out of her way to make public her strategy to wreak havoc with the world?”

  Ali paused. “I don’t know.”

  Her father broke in. “You must have some ideas.”

  “I’m saying the games serve a purpose besides the obvious. She did not create the company to make money. I could make all the money I wanted—if I put my mind to it.”

  Hector and her dad exchanged looks. “Jason, I wish I had a daughter like yours,” Hector said.

  “You forget what I said,” Ali told him. “Nira’s been marked. She’s under a spell. But when I saw her in the elemental world, I saw a being of immense power and wisdom. I think freeing Nira of her spell is one of the keys to stopping this invasion.”

  “Since time is short, perhaps we should focus on that,” her father said.

  “She’s just a child, what could she do?” Hector protested.

  “None of us know what she can and cannot do,” Ali said. “Only that Sheri must have marked her at such a young age because she was afraid of her. In fact, I think that’s the only way she was able to mark her—when Nira was real tiny. Otherwise, I think Nira would have been immune to her mother’s power.”

  “Why did she even have a child at all?” Hector asked, a touchy spot with him.

  “I don’t know,” Ali said.

  “Since your return from the other dimension, have you tried removing the spell?” her father asked.

  “Yes. I got nowhere. But we’ve strayed from the immediate point. I need a copy of Armageddon. Sheri poured a ton of effort into it, even though she knew this invasion was coming. From the start, I think she planned to release it once the invasion began.”

  “That’s a crazy idea,” her dad said.

  Hector nodded. “I’m afraid I must agree with your dad, Ali. Say the world is being overrun with elementals. No one’s going to stop and sit down and play a video game.”

  Ali paused. It was a dumb idea. She wasn’t even sure why she had said it. The words had just sort of popped out of her mouth. Nevertheless, she sensed truth in them.

  “I can’t argue the point. I can only repeat what I have said. That woman did not make that game for her own amusement. There is a deep purpose behind it.” Ali paused. “When we spoke at the police station, she hinted that she might have a partner.”

  “Who do you think it is?”

  Ali hesitated. “At first I thought it might be this blind man who works at her firm, Mike Havor. But he’s too kind and gentle. I know he’s not faking that. I can sense when human beings speak the truth.”

  Her dad chuckled, along with Hector. “Are we just human beings now?”

  Ali blushed. “That’s been a thorn in my side since I discovered my powers. Why Cindy and Steve . . . they would.” Ali felt a sudden lump in her throat, had to force herself to finish. “They’d make fun of me, you know. That they were my minions, and I was their queen. I tried to play it down, but it was hard on all of us. I hope that doesn’t happen with us three. But having power does separate me—anyone—from people. Even when I go out of my way to stop it from happening.”

  Seeing she was getting emotional, her father gave her a hug. “Nothing will ever separate you from me,” he whispered in her ear.

  She hugged him in return. “It never came between you and Mom.”

  He drew back at the remark. “Ali, that’s what I really need to talk to you about. In this other world . . .”

  She put her palm on his chest, caught his eye. “Later, Dad, I promise.”

  Hector moved to stand. “I can leave the room if you want?”

  Ali nodded. “Get that friend who works at Omega and get that game.”

  Hector was confused. “But this Mike Havor you were telling us about. Why can’t he get you a copy? It sounds like you trust him.”

  “I do trust him, but he’s worked for Sheri Smith a long time. There’s got to be deep loyalty there. He asked me to call him tonight, and I’m going to do so. But I don’t want him to know of my interest in the game. I have to be careful. Who knows what he might tell his boss.”

  Hector nodded. “That friend I mentioned, with one call, she’ll be able to get me a copy. I’ll tell her to keep it between us.”

  “You trust this person completely?” Ali asked.

  Hector didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Turning toward the door, he suddenly stopped. “Shouldn’t I take Nira with me?”

  Ali shook her head. “I didn’t tell you this but—the reason I have her in the other room watching TV—Sheri might be able to see and hear through her eyes and ears.”

  “What?” they both said at once.

  Ali was grim. “Something I discovered in the green world. When we move Nira—and we’ll have to do that soon—we have to blindfold her. Even go so far as to put wax in her ears.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” Hector said, an edge in his voice.

  “In the other world, I had to do it to someone I loved,” Ali said. “It’s unpleasant, but it doesn’t have to be for long. If Nira’s put up in a hotel room, where the windows have been sealed, she can eat and watch TV and be as happy as she has been most of her life.” She added, “Especially if Cindy is around.”

  “What’s her connection to Cindy?” Hector asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ali said. “But it’s real.”

  Hector left, and when he was gone, Ali and her father sat a long time in silence across from each other. Ali kept her gaze down, thinking about the trials that awaited her in the elemental world. The Shaktra—the fairy half—would have the entrance to Mt. Tutor guarded. It might be impossible to even get to her allies in the north, never mind to Lord Vak and his army. Before she tried passing through the green door in the mountain, she would require multiple plans.

  She could feel her father’s eyes on her, glanced up.

  She smiled. “What are you thinking?”

  He smiled back. “So you can’t read minds? I’m surprised.”

  “I can sense emotions. But even if I could read minds, I would not read yours without your permission.”

  “All right then, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. Your argument with Hector about the game was weak. It was based on the assumption Sheri Smith would not have done something for nothing. For all you know, her firm could have been nothing more than mere camouflage. True?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you so desperate to get the game?”

  “It was something I noticed when I was reviewing Cindy’s memories of her first meeting with Hector. Before the car crash that burned Lucy, he said he was drinking beer and playing an Internet game with buddies of his on the other side of the country. Then, when he was asked about the accident—by Steve and the police—he said he couldn’t remember exactly what happened.”

  “Which means he was drunk when he crashed.”

  “Maybe. But this accident happened over thirteen years ago. Back then, there were no games on the Internet where people from different parts of the country could join together and play. The technology hadn’t been invented yet. Still, Hector played such a game, and immediately after doing so, he swerved off the road for no reason, hit a tree, was thrown clear, while the love of his life was burned to a crisp.” She paused. “I find it too coincidental.”

  “Because you think her severe burns set her down the dark path?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you share this with Hector?”

  “I feared it would add to his guilt about what happened to Lucy. Best he see it as an accident, at least for now, nothing more. Besides, he’s still having trouble swallowing the fact that he’s Nira’s father.”

  “I talked to him in private, when you were in the bathroom. I’m not sure he has accepted that yet.”

  Ali waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. He loves her, he’l
l do anything to protect her. In time, the truth will become clear to him.”

  “You surprised me, when the three of us were talking earlier, you said you were returning to the green world.”

  “I told you, my work there is not finished,” Ali said.

  “But do you have to go so soon?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he added, “What if you die there? I would never know.”

  She forced a laugh. “These days, Dad, I’m not so easy to kill.”

  “Nor is your enemy. I must be frank, Ali. Today you’ve blown my mind so far out of my skull, I don’t know where it’s going to land. But I take it all in—somehow, I imagine—because a part of me knew it all along. You were right to prod my memory. I always knew you were not a normal girl. But even with all these incredible powers you possess, you’re still my daughter and I can read you pretty well. You know if you go back to the green world, there’s a good chance you won’t return. Why?”

  She hesitated. “It deals with the Isle of Greesh.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An island that lies off the west coast of the elemental mainland. The Shaktra emerged from that isle, and I feel I must go back there to understand how it all began. Unless I can gain that understanding, I see no way of stopping this war.”

  “The way you talk about the island, it frightens you.”

  “Yes. In my last life, I visited there.”

  “What happened?”

  Ali lowered her head, thinking of Jira. “Something terrible.”

  “Then you mustn’t go back. Surely there is someone else who can go.”

  She sighed. “There’s no one. The isle is cloaked in evil. Who could I send there in my place? Who could survive?”

  “But what good will it do anyone if you go there and die?”

  “I don’t think whatever is on the island wants to kill me.”

  “No?”

  Ali considered. “I think it wants me to join it.”

  “But you have no idea what it is?”

  “None.”

  “You’ve been patient with Hector and me to answer so many questions. But you know I need to ask about your mother. You say that it’s the fairy belief that our souls migrate from Earth to the green world—back and forth—from one life to the next. If that’s the case, since your mother is dead in this world, she must be alive in the green world.” He paused. “Did you see her?”

  Ali hesitated a long time. “I spent time with her. There, her name’s Amma.”

  Her father sighed. No, it was more a groan of relief so painful it was hard to hear. Ironically, the worst part was the hope she heard in it. He had to strain to speak. “What was she like?” he asked.

  “The same. She was the same. Oh, I mean, as a high fairy, she knew more than she knew as a human. She was very powerful. But she was Mom.”

  “The accident that killed her? Was it an accident?”

  “No.”

  He was a long time absorbing the information.

  “Was Karl Tanner behind it?”

  His insight surprised her. “Yes,” she said.

  “Was he responsible for what happened to Steve?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will either of them . . . ever be found?”

  Ali hesitated. “No.”

  He’d just asked if she had murdered a person, and she had confessed to committing the crime, and yet he did not pursue it because there was something much bigger on his mind. Yes, bigger than murder, and Ali knew what it was.

  “Is there any way for me to see your mother?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Could I talk to her?”

  “No.”

  A note of desperation entered his voice. “You said this boy, Ra, was able to enter the green world. How come I can’t do the same?”

  The curious thing was, she did not know the answer to his question. It was common knowledge among fairies that humans could not survive the high vibrations of the fourth dimension for any length of time, although the reverse was not true. Elementals could thrive on Earth. The memories she had regained when she had taken the stardust overdose atop the mighty kloudar confirmed these facts.

  Yet Ra appeared to have no trouble journeying through the green world.

  Odd. Of course, Ra himself was odd.

  Ali spoke in a soothing tone. “Isn’t it enough to know that Mom’s fine? In a beautiful realm surrounded by wonderful friends?”

  The lies cost Ali, the effort it took to hide the truth from her father. Amma had been marked by the Shaktra. Until Ali could learn to break the spell, her mother lived a life of perpetual hell.

  “You’re sure there’s no way?” her father asked again, this time practically begging. Ali closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “Please put it out of your mind, Dad,” she whispered.

  Even with her closed eyes, she heard him nod. A silent yes.

  Still, she knew he would do anything to see Amma.

  CHAPTER

  6

  While waiting for Hector to return, Ali made Nira and her father dinner. They ate together. Chicken and rice and salad. A glass of Coke to drown out her poor choice of herbs. But her father complimented her on the meal, and Nira appeared to enjoy her food. She ate it all.

  Afterward, Hector called from Toule and said he would be able to download the game to her over her modem; there was no need to deliver it to her in person. She told him to do so, but to return to Breakwater anyway.

  Hector did not seem to mind taking orders from a thirteen-year-old girl. He was agreeable—so far. While talking to him, she told him to get together as much cash as possible. He assured her he had plenty of money locked away in a vault he had built beneath his house. A handy quality, him being a contractor.

  Ali wanted Nira and Cindy out of Breakwater tonight. She couldn’t return to the green world without knowing they were safe from an assault by Sheri. Ali shuddered as she recalled the woman’s remark about stopping Cindy’s heart.

  Ali’s plan to hide the gang was simple. She would put them in a place none of them had ever been before. They would travel using cash, not credit cards, and she would use her subtle senses to make sure they were not being followed.

  Ali called Cindy and told her to pack, warned her not to let her parents know. Her old friend complained but obeyed. Ali knew her pal was going to have to sneak out of the house. Twice Cindy asked how Nira was doing.

  While her father watched Nira in the living room, she retired to her room to study both of Omega Overtures’s bestselling games—Overlord and Armageddon. At the same time, Ali reflected on what Sheri had told Steve and Cindy when the three had lunch at her mansion—before the witch had hauled them off to her dungeon and chained them to a wall. These were part of the incomplete dialogues Ali had scanned from Cindy just before her pal had passed out.

  “Overlord tries to strip the direction of humanity down to the basics. We are here, we are alive, and we want to survive. Now how are we going to do that? It points out that so far we’ve been lucky to progress as a species, stumbling around in the dark the way we have. But now that technology has reached a certain level, hard choices have to be made. The most obvious is probably the most important. Do we continue to allow people to breed indiscriminately? It is the point of view of the game that the answer must be no. Our genes are our wealth. If we squander it, randomly, we will be left with nothing, and we will not survive as a race.”

  Ali was reminded of Sheri’s remarks at the police station about allowing only half of humanity to live. All part of the master plan . . .

  At that point Steve had interrupted her with an obvious question.

  “But who’s to say which genes survive?”

  Ali could remember, from Cindy’s memories, how the woman brushed aside the question as unimportant.

  “It doesn’t matter, someone intelligent, someone powerful, possessed of vision. Overlord tries to make that point with the Kabrosh character. He’s the first one to see that
not only must our genes be controlled, but that the fusion of machines and humans is inevitable. That is Kabrosh’s strength. He knows what is necessary, and he goes for it. He doesn’t let primitive morality stand in his way.”

  Ali remembered that Mike Havor had also said similar things, although in a more gentle fashion. He did not talk about one individual taking over the world, but did insist that humans and machines would eventually merge.

  At that point in the conversation, Cindy had chimed in.

  “I always saw Kabrosh as a villain.”

  The remark had amused Sheri.

  “He’s the hero of the game.”

  Steve had pressed the point.

  “But it’s possible to win the game by killing him.”

  Sheri had replied in a condescending tone.

  “You think so, huh? You have only mastered one level of the game. If you keep playing and explore all its levels, you’ll find Kabrosh returns and starts to take over the world. He actually returns in an altered form, as a cyborg, and wields great power.”

  Then Cindy had made perhaps the most important remark of the day.

  “It sounds like you admire him.”

  Sheri had laughed as she drank her wine.

  “I designed him, of course I have to admire him.”

  Ali’s computer had received the downloaded game from Hector’s machine, and she was able to get a look at Armageddon. Immediately she saw the differences from Overlord. It was not a mere sequel to the original game. The character of Kabrosh was back, but now there was no hiding the fact that he was moving from one world to another—from the ruin of a bombed-out Earth to another planet that at first glance seemed to be dominated by robots. Ali had only to play the new game a few minutes to see that the robots were taking instructions from someone higher up. She had no idea who that was, and yet, visually, the other world resembled the elemental dimension. It was beautiful, seemingly untouched by strife.