Megan sat down on that severely plain couch and dropped her head into her hands. “Yeah,” she said. “I do. A lot. And I don’t know what we can do about it, now that it’s happened.”
“Not just give up,” Leif said.
“But, Leif, you heard Winters. He’s taken us out of the loop. If they catch us—”
“How are they going to catch us? It’s not like we’re not Sarxos players. It’s not like we don’t have a right to be in the game when we want to. Isn’t that so?”
“Yeah, but — Leif, if we do that, they’re gonna know right away what we’re doing!”
“Are they? But we’re good little Net Force Explorers, aren’t we?” Leif’s grin popped out, and looked unusually mischievous for a moment. “Who’d ever suspect us of disobeying orders? Intentionally, anyway.” Leif held his head high and looked for a moment impossibly noble, innocent, and dim.
Megan had to laugh at the sight of him.
“Not that they can give us orders,” Leif said. “Suggestions, yes…”
“You are amazing,” she said.
“Thank you. And modest.”
“Oy,” Megan said.
“Look,” Leif said. “Think about it. The reason we’re lucky enough to be Explorers in the first place is because they saw something in us that was not the usual kind of behavior. A little more willing to swing out into the unknown, maybe. If we just give up now because we’re told to—”
“If we were in Net Force, we’d have to do what we were told, Leif! Discipline—”
“Frack discipline,” Leif said. “Well, I don’t mean that. But we’re not fully in. It gives us a little—”
“—Latitude?” She scowled.
“Megan, I’m telling you, I’m right on this one. And you know I am. That’s why you’re making those weird faces at me. You should see yourself.”
She looked at him dubiously. It went right against her grain to ignore Winters’s “suggestion.” She understood his concern. She knew what her parents would say if she told them anything about this. But whether she planned to tell them anything about this, right this minute anyway, was another story. Maybe later. But right now — I have to make a choice.
“Well—” she said.
“And look,” Leif said. “We’ve still got problems. Argath, or whoever, is still out there, and I bet he, she, they, or it—”
“He, for my money,” Megan said.
“Yeah — anyway, they’re still targeting people. What about those other two lords that Elblai was mentioning? Fettick and Morn? To judge by what she was saying last night, they’re likely to be the next targets. I mean, look at it, Megan! Whoever’s doing this, they’re not waiting around to hit someone who’s beaten Argath anymore. Whether it is Argath himself, or someone using some kind of weird cover—”
“What I still don’t get is why anyone would do that.”
“A grudge,” Leif said. “Or the attacker is crazy. Never mind…there’s still time to work that out. But whatever the cause, whoever it is that’s doing this, they’ve stopped being patient about it. They’re hitting people before they actually fight Argath, when it just looks like there’s a possibility they might beat him.”
“Yeah. All right. I see your point. So — what’ll we do? Go try to warn them? Which kingdoms were in question?”
“Errint and Aedleia,” she said. “I know them slightly: they’re northern neighbors of Orxen. I’ve got more than enough transit to get us there. We can be there tonight. Their battles weren’t scheduled to happen right away. It’s just possible that we can—”
“What? Get them not to go ahead with a campaign that they’ve been planning, and that they really want? That’s gonna be a good trick.”
“We’ve got to try. We didn’t try hard enough last night…and look what happened. You want to see these new targets run off a road…or worse? And what about all the others who might shortly be in the same situation? There have to be other players who’ve been waiting their chance to take Argath on. After these guys, they’ll be a threat, too. If we can find out what other players are eager to fight him, we may be able to find some other connecting strand, some line of data that’ll lead us to whoever’s doing this. And I want them,” Leif said softly. “I want them.”
Megan nodded slowly. She did not often feel physically violent. Even when she managed to engineer situations that gave her an excuse, every now and then, to toss her brothers around, it was mostly enjoyment she felt, and amused satisfaction at the looks on their faces as she reminded them that life was not always predictable. But now…now she felt, uncharacteristically, like she wanted to hurt somebody. Specifically, whoever had sent Elblai into the hospital, pale, with an oxygen mask hiding her pretty, motherly face.
“Look,” Leif said. “Do your briefing for Winters. Get that finished, leave it on timed-send in your computer, and get it off to him tonight…after we’re already in Sarxos. Or after we’ve come out.”
“Leif, I can’t tonight,” Megan said. “I told you, I have this family thing—”
“This is an emergency,” Leif said. “Isn’t it? Can’t you beg off just this once?”
She thought about that, thought about the concerned look on her father’s face. “Probably,” she said. “I don’t usually do this.”
“Come on, Megan. It’s important. And it’s more than just those other people.” He looked at her, intense. “What are you really thinking about doing after you get out of school?”
“Well, strategic operations, obviously, but—”
“But where? For some think tank? Doing it in some dry boring place where you’ll never actually get out to see whether what you’ve planned is happening? You want to do it in Net Force, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Megan said. “Of course I do. It’s…I think it’s one of the most important agencies we’ve got now, though there are probably people who would say that’s overrating it.” She shifted a little uncomfortably. “It’s the cutting edge.”
“Well, you want to stay there, don’t you? If you back off from this now, just because Winters told you to get out of danger, out of trouble…If we succeed in making it into Net Force someday, there’s going to be danger and trouble. This is just practice. Besides — they’re watching us. You know they’re watching us. If we go in alongside them — maybe even ahead of them — and crack this thing, with our eyes open and our brains hot, you think they’re going to be angry about that? I don’t think so. They’re going to be impressed. If we impress them now—”
Megan nodded. “I can’t believe,” she said slowly, “that we’re not at least as good as any operatives they’re going to send in there. Besides, we know Sarxos better than anyone they’ve got. That’s why they asked us to go in in the first place. Because we’re best…”
She looked up at Leif, grinned, and got up. “I’m with you,” she said. “Look, I’m not sure what time I’ll get into the game tonight. Opting out of family night is going to take some explaining.”
“Okay…well, I’ll go in before you, and wait for you — and I’ll leave some transit in your account. We’ll meet in Errint, and see if we can catch Fettick first and warn him off. The place is just a little city-state, kind of like Minsar. When you get to the city, there’s a little cookshop just inside the third wall, a place called Attila’s.”
Megan raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Leif said, “they make good chili there. I’ll sit there and amuse myself until you get there. Then we’ll go in and engineer a chat with Fettick…take our time and make sure he understands.”