The Nialhaus Proxy

  PATRICK WAYLAND

  For my father

  Copyright © 2016 Patrick Wayland

  All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

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  EPILOGUE

  THE END

  COMING SOON

  ALSO BY PATRICK WAYLAND

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  Brendan Hess had only three rules that he lived by at both work and inside World of War Masters online game. Number One: never let your team down. That was obvious. He always did whatever was needed to get back into the fight no matter how many times he died in some dungeon chamber. Number Two: spend at least a quarter of your time learning new fighting skills and spells. At work this meant taking Java, C++ and PHP classes at San Jose State Annex at least every six months. And, finally, Number Three: make sure you got your fair share of the treasure.

  And this one had just been broken.

  It really wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know he had been doing a little extra task on the side for his boss, what some might consider breaking the law. Breaking the law didn’t bother him. Sometimes you had to bend the rules to win. In World of War Masters his Palladian Fighter had a neutral-good disposition. This meant he could work with neutral-evil and basic-good as well as high-good characters. His fighter could actually be in a team with a high-evil character, but only if a basic-evil character came along to act as peacekeeper.

  On his way to his mother’s house in Daly City, Brendan downshifted his Mazda as he took the sharp, rising turn on Highway 1 around the mountain bend. His wheels squealed on the warm pavement. The day was perfect, too perfect for the surfers around Santa Cruz. Monterey Bay offered them very little in the cloudless, windless day, and they sat on their surfboards like albatrosses riding nothing but mild swells. He sped up as the road straightened on a section known as Devil’s Slide, the beige cliffs filling his sports car’s passenger window.

  Fair distribution. It wasn’t too much to ask for. If the boss was getting extra coinage, Brendan should get a portion. After all, he was doing the risky part.

  He shifted up as his car picked up speed. The sea down the rocky cliffs sparkled like a big pile of silver from his periphery. A sign warned of a sharp turn ahead, but he knew he could take it doing about 10 MPH over what was posted. It was early afternoon and he had the road almost completely to himself.

  Of course you don’t give an ogre barbarian magic scrolls, but you do give him an equal amount of the coinage. Coinage is always fairly distributed.

  Brendan was glad he had walked out on his boss after giving him a piece of his mind and the perfect threat – more money or he’d go to the cops. He felt good, like he’d totally succeeded on a Charisma attack roll. You wanna use me as a mule, it’s gonna cost a lot more. But how much? He regretted not throwing out a number. Twenty or thirty thousand more a year. Perhaps he could have waited a minute longer inside that office, and let his boss reply, or say something, or show some expression.

  His tires crunched handfuls of gravel and small stones that had fallen off the steep rock. Around the curve, the back of a truck appeared. His foot reflexively hit the brake pedal. He slowed, coming up to within a few feet of the rear bumper. The Mazda’s gears started rattling. He downshifted and blew out a slow breath. It was a mover’s trucks, all white, no signage or logos and a width that took up most of the lane. He couldn’t see anything ahead.

  He stayed close, ready to pass the annoyance, and his thoughts returned to his opportunity for plunder. With a big raise, he could go onto the marketplace and purchase some real upgrades. Helios Chainmail, level 20 Bluedragon broadsword, Clariot lightboots for speed. For six months he had been trying to win a Jumper Sack of Infinity. It held twice as many items as his Bidian Blessed Backpack of Spaciousness. World of War Master didn’t condone players buying equipment from the marketplace sites, but everyone did it.

  Straightening along a strip of railing, the road’s solid double line became dashes. Brendan drifted from behind the truck and into the opposite lane to check for oncoming traffic. Clear, he pressed the gas down. His old Mazda hesitated for three seconds before the engine responded and he felt the acceleration on the slight incline. He pulled around beside the truck, pressing the pedal down. The back tires of the truck hummed by the side window.

  A few seconds later the truck was still beside him. Was the driver accelerating?

  Brendan glanced up at the cabin. Some Chinese man was driving, a professional driver judging by the gloves he was wearing. Brendan downshifted to extract every ounce of power from his Mazda. Strangely, just as he was about to clear the cabin, he heard the truck’s gears shift, the truck jumping forward a bit. Chinese drivers!

  He leaned over the passenger seat to glare. To his surprise, the obnoxious man was looking straight down at him. If he had his level 13 human wizard with him, Brendan thought, he’d cast a spell of delay on the fool. Or better yet, he’d shoot a fireball from his Matlock’s Mage Wand. Straight into his face. This isn’t a race track!

  He put all his weight on the gas pedal, feeling it hit floorboard. His little Mazda’s engine puttered, the lower gear whined. He knew he needed a tune-up, a wash or an oil change or something, but those things had never been necessities. For the last five years all his car had needed was gas.

  A hundred yards up the clear lane, the dashed line turned solid. There the road swept right, out of view around the next ridge. Past the railing on his left was sky, Pacific blue, and horizon. He knew over the ridge was San Mateo and Highway 280 which would have been a faster route, but he absolutely had to stop by his game club. For the last two years they had been running a table-top miniatures game reproducing the Battle of Stalingrad. Brendan was only allowed to join the game after he promised to drive down to Santa Cruz at least twice a week to move his pieces and make his attacks. And having just spent three days in Korea, it was a do or die visit.

  His car could do it – he willed it. Inch, by inch he moved ahead. The trucks front bumper slid past the Mazda’s hood, then the window. Inch by inch. He was almost clear, the gas pedal solidly down. Surely, after passing, the obstinate truck driver would give up, slow down.

  But the fool kept up. He must have had his gas pedal to the floor as well to accelerate the heavy vehicle on the incline. The fool… the fool… looked familiar. Images flashed through his brain. His home, his room and computer equipment, Leo’s Pub in the port city of Ghokow of World of War Masters and Palladians’ castle where only his class could enter and reequip.

  He’d seen that Chinese man before. But where? For a moment his car stopped making progress. Brendan knew he would need to slow, surrender the race, get back behind the truck. But just then, at the very last moment this decision needed to be made, the Chinese man lifted his foot off the gas. The truck’s bumper began slipping back, back, back. It was out of view now. Brendan let out a sigh.

  Orange dashes became solid lines. The road began its curve following the steep cliffs of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Brendan glanced into the passenger-side mirror, ready to switch lanes – but he wasn’t clear. The truck’s bumper was level with his back tire.

  Surrender!

  Brendan lifted his foot from the pedal. He felt a jarring thump. And then the oddest thing happened.

  The world started spinning.

  His body slid against the door, his head thumping against the top of the window. Blue, beige, blue, beige. Then another thump. The window supporting his head crumbled away like fairy dust. The warm wind of the bay blasted against his face. He noticed his hands had come off the steering wheel. His arms were floating in front of his head as if he were one of those sleeping astronauts on the space station. Beige, blue, beige, blue rolled outside his windows. It was like he was in a clothes dryer. His door was opened – no, not opened. Fell away. And something began nudging his left side. He couldn’t hear anything except a ringing in his ears. Daylight flicked on and off.

  A bug in the game – I found a bug in the game.

  His seat slid out. Broke off. Like a jet pilot being ejected, he flew into the sky. When he landed, air and liquid were expelled from his lungs – the juices slide up his throat and out his mouth. Then sounds came back on. Glass tinkling down the cliff, metal falling over, sea birds crying, waves washing up, fire burning.

  My headset has a loose wire.

  He moved his eyes around because he could not move anything else. It felt like his body had been tied up tightly inside a blanket. He found his left arm was missing. Hah, hah. Who cut off my arm? The blood effect was totally unrealistic. When someone lost a limb in World of War Masters, the blood shot out several feet like a shotgun blast, but now his arm stump had shriveled in on itself, ripped flesh covered the shard of bone sticking out. Blood leaked out in a pathetic stream. He looked down at his chest where a thin strip of metal was planted. His entire body lay on a fold of the rocks at the base of the cliff. Blood and dirt covered his clothes. A few yards away, smoke rose from his car, its shape now bent and squashed like an abused can of soda. The top had been torn open. Three or four stories above, a bough of steel railing hung out over the ledge.

  Resurrection spell. Need someone to cast a res on me.

  Brendan’s breathing sounded like the dregs of a drink being sucked through a straw. He listened to this strange sound for a minute, and then the sky darkened. Someone must have cast a level 8 Eclipse spell to blind all enemies. He must have failed his resistance roll. When everything was black, he remembered where he’d seen the Chinese man. He’d seen him walking around outside his apartment complex. The Chinese man had been wearing a hoody, and had turned away when Brendan walked out. At the time, the hoody had reminded Brendan of an elf ranger. I’m going to make an elf next time. He liked the elves; even though, World of War Masters gave the female elves breasts that were way too big. But what did that matter? He was tired and didn’t feel very well. He didn’t even want to be res’d. He just wanted to sleep.

  2

  Mark Streigh felt like the dumbest guy in the world. There he was, a software engineer sitting in the heart of one of the most productive places on Earth but unable to get a job. He looked over at a wall clock in the shape of a giant coffee bean. 2:30PM. It was time. He sat perfectly upright like a student trying to impress a teacher.

  Mark watched the door another minute before glancing at the only other customer in the room, a man who looked to be the same age, twenty-seven. The man wore a T-shirt and long shorts and reclined as far back as his wood chair allowed, reading a yellow-paged pulp novel, tennis shoes sticking out past the other end of the table. The man was probably just on a long lunch break. It was obvious he didn’t need a job, unlike Mark.

  While a barista worked a hissing espresso machine behind the bar, Mark fiddled with his fingers and ran through interview questions he had googled a week before. He tried to recall all the questions he had been asked on his five previous interviews.

  What languages do you know? What operating systems? How do you deal with team conflict? What are your weaknesses? Your strengths? Why did you leave your last job?

  That last question was always the killer.

  I quit because I didn’t like the boss.

  OK. Well, we’ll get back with you. Goodbye.

  Mark wanted to bang his head against a brick wall. Who quits because they don’t like the boss? Everybody hates their boss. Mark tried to forget the blowup he had had on his last day when he learned the boss had fired Cassandra, the secretary the asshole was sleeping with. That wasn’t a problem. Mark had no business in their relationship, but he was friends with her. Cassandra and he often spoke in the morning, chatting about little things. And she was the person who bought cake on everyone’s birthday and helped fill in the tedious acquisitions forms. But then the boss fired her and Mark hastily quit out of protest. That was six months ago.

  The front of the café was all glass, and the glare of sunlight filled the room. Most of the ceiling lights had been turned off. The small café was inside one of the Mountain View business parks that had sprouted in the 90’s when start-ups were desperate for office space – the hastily built two-story structures all looked like warehouses. Beyond the parking lot, the land dipped down to the shoot of Highway 101. Trees and a wall hid the traffic, but Mark had a clear view of Moffett Airfield on the other side, the glass and steel research offices of Lockheed Martin and the dirigible hangar that he always thought looked like a massive capsized ship.

  A maroon BMW Z4 appeared, racing into view like a bee spiraling around the side of his head. It stopped in front of the door, and then didn’t move, a starburst of glare covering the activity inside. Mark sat up, took a sip of his coffee and then leaned back. Was it the CEO who had called him an hour earlier? Was this a real interview? Most managers wanted you to come to their office, not meet at a café. But this was Silicon Valley where million-dollar deals were sketched-out on napkins in restaurants.

  Two minutes passed before the driver got out, a man wearing a business suit minus a tie. He slipped a phone into his pocket. He took off his sunglasses and set them on the dashboard. He bent back inside the car and emerged with a laptop case. Then he walked through the door. He looked at the man reading the book and pointed, but then moved his finger like a compass needle onto Mark. Mark stood up, ridiculously raising his hand like a fourth grader volunteering to answer a question.

  “Mark Streigh? Awesome. Vince Halper, President of Nialhaus Networks.”

  He stepped over up to Mark. They shook hands.

  “Sit. Sit.” He sat down across the table, leaning forward slightly, facing Mark directly, his legs spread wide.

  “Did you want a coffee?” Mark asked.

  “Had my fix already, thanks. Look, really appreciate you meeting me on such short notice. Had business in the area, so it was more convenient to meet here.”

  “I brought my resume—” Mark started to reach down into the backpack he had on the floor beside him.

  “Nope. No need. Saw it all online.” Vince put up a hand. The hand went down to rest on the table. “Mark, let’s talk.” Two fingers tapped the tabletop after he spoke the words as if he was left-clicking a mouse button to move to the next page.

  “I know I’m supposed to ask you about your strengths, how you like to work, do you delegate or some other bullshit questions, but I’m not. Why? Because I don’t care. I don’t care if you got sacked for arguing with the micromanaging boss or you quit because you hated one of your coworkers. That’s all irrelevant. Not a factor.”

  Mark was conscious that one of his eyebrows rose, and he began a shrug, ready to give the reply he had memorized. Vince tilted his head slightly and watched Mark. Mark, unemployed and with about two thousand dollars in his bank account, forced himself to pause. He wanted to give the same excuse for leaving his last job as he had in his last unsuccessful interview, but Vince had not asked that question.

  “Well,” Mark finally said, “What do you need, then?”

  “Good. You’re direct. See, that’s a quality I value.” Vince winked. “We do WAN’s, secured networks, encoding. So, here’s what I need.” Vince set his elbows on the table and held up one closed fist, gold Rolex dangling on his left wrist, a Wharton University class ring gleaming on the right. “I need your five years of experience.” He extended his index finger into the air. “Your Java, your Linux, your network protocol work and your PC and iOS skills.” He extended out his thumb and remaining fingers as he counted off the other items. “But there’re more important qualities I need. Qualities people don’t learn in school. Can’t. They’re too internal, too embedded inside us.”

  Vince spoke with energy and urgency, enunciating each of his words like a motivational speaker. He smiled with the confidence of a man who never carried any bill smaller than a twenty in his wallet. He wore his dress shirt open at the top like so many Palo Alto VCs. His chest was tanned and he had the defined muscles of someone who hired a personal trainer. His short hair, dark brown with grey highlights, looked recently trimmed. His clothes dry cleaned, his shoes shined, his nails manicured, his facial pores spa-cleansed. Mark tried to match Vince’s poise, giving himself orders. Sit straight. Stay still. Smile. Nod. He absolutely would not reveal a drop of his desperation.

  “The first quality required is self-sufficiency. As I mentioned on the phone, the job requires travel. Many of our clients are overseas. That’s why I asked you if your passport was valid. You need to be able to solve any client-site problems on your own. A lot of programmers don’t like firefighting, but that’s part of the job.”

 

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