4. Ghost of the Cabaret (6)
4. Ghost of the Cabaret (6)
The second act of <Count Wolfenstein> began.
The murmuring crowd fell silent, the curtain rose, and the ensemble struck up the opening number.
Shayla's bright voice—playing the princess—soared over the jaunty music, filling the hall.
An innocent girl, giddy over a letter from the count, boasting to everyone around her.
She could act, no question.
You'd never guess she'd been sobbing in a dancer's arms during intermission.
I was making my way across the iron framework above even the uppermost gallery.
Every step wrung a creak from the catwalk grating, but the actors' voices and the orchestra swallowed the sound before it traveled anywhere.
A staff member leaned against the railing barely a few meters below, and he didn't so much as twitch when I passed directly over his head.
The Rose Windmill Cabaret's layout was a maze.
Upper and lower seating were rigorously cordoned off from each other, linked by staff corridors that snaked between them in asymmetrical patterns.
I never hesitated once, though.
I'd run through this place more times than I could count in the game.
I picked out shortcuts that didn't appear on any visitor's map.
That was how I'd climbed all the way here without anyone spotting me.
From the ceiling level upward, technicians checking rigging and lift gear passed through now and then.
I had to move with real caution. Took my time, looping around to stay out of sightlines even when it took longer.
At last, I reached the highest gantry.
I looked down at the stage far below.
The scenery had shifted from the princess's castle to the count's manor.
The count and the Black Magician were conferring—what ingredients does the foul ritual require?—while a maid eavesdropped on them from the shadows.
The scene was coming up fast.
The count would corner the maid, laugh at her love...
Then seize her arm and force a kiss on—
BOOM!
The orchestra's deep, resonant crash, cued at the scene transition.
I snapped out of it.
The count had discovered the maid, hidden in the alcove, overhearing his secret.
He went for his sword.
She dropped to her knees.
—I want the lady to come home, too. I'll never whisper a word of your secret to anyone. So please—don't point that blade at me. Don't look at me with those eyes.
Ella was performing on a massive stage, before a packed house, without a tremor of nerves.
Or—she was acting the part of a trembling girl, so maybe the right word was poised.
We'd made the call to run this play barely half an hour ago.
Yet she didn't shrink in the presence of the veterans sharing the stage with her.
—Very well. I shall go to the capital. Go and... to the princess...
Wait. What am I doing?
This isn't the time to get absorbed in a performance.
I lifted my gaze and scanned the ironwork around me.
I'd been surveilling the ceiling the whole climb up.
The ghost could be anywhere.
About halfway across, I saw it.
One of the chains supporting a ceiling fixture snapped free and whipped through the air.
The light was unlit, so I was the only one who saw it sway.
That had to be where he was.
He meant to drop the fixture onto the actor playing the count.
The bastard who'd laid hands on his "little bird."
I kept watching, and another chain lashed loose.
There.
Even in pitch darkness, my eyes could register the slightest shift.
Eye tracker.
A device I'd used back in the real world, to operate a computer.
It did exactly what the name implied—tracked the position and movement of the eyes, the gaze, to function in place of a mouse.
That technology had become my mental arms and legs.
With my eyes I turned on the computer, wrote, browsed the web, played games.
Years of relentless practice let me run the tracker at a sensitivity of one pixel.
Meaning I could control my gaze with single-dot precision on an 8-megapixel 4K display.
Seeing and analyzing had become as natural to me as breathing.
A single pixel changed anywhere in my field of view, and I'd catch it.
Where the ghost was.
As I closed in, I worked through the approach.
He'd never been designed as an enemy character.
So there was no proper, by-the-book strat to lean on.
But I'd dissected the Tril Trillo games down to their absolute limits.
Finding exploits to kill off unlikable support characters or helpers—that was one of my signature moves.
There were ways to eliminate Derek the ghost permanently.
Doing so required a few things I didn't have here, though.
I wasn't catching him tonight.
Plan A: drive him off.
The objective was to safeguard Ella's Member Quest, nothing more.
—Didn't you pull her outside because you were afraid she'd have to kiss the actor playing the count?
...So she could see her own part through to the end.
I stood at the highest point of Hall No. 1.
In the distance, a man in a black cloak stood before the chain.
"That's enough."
He spun around.
The mask hid his expression, but the shock was unmistakable.
"Derek."
I spoke his name to rattle him further.
At the same time, I swept my cloak wide.
"The show must go on."
The troupe's Average Affection level now sat a little above 7, and our Circus Troupe Fame had cleared 20.
That combination delivered 10 Devolut to me every midnight.
Throw in Member Quests and the occasional sub-quest, and I'd banked 100 Devolut in a single week.
Name: Frank Wonderstein
Age: 27
Class: BioMancer
-Devolut: (67/80)
-Muscle Strength: 3.0 (Novice Lifter)
-Tissue Hardness: 3.0 (Chainmail)
-Cell Regeneration: 3.0 (Sprinter)
Trait
: [The Smiling Man]
I'd decided it was time to develop an actual combat ability.
Most of my traits so far had been improvised under duress.
Rapid Rigidity, Gills, Webbed Feet, Poncho Leaf Making, Breadfruit Tree Making, Spoon Branch—all spur-of-the-moment solutions.
Building a combat trait that way was too risky.
You were attaching body parts that had never existed before—tentacles, wings, tails—and expecting to wield them naturally.
Could a person simply learn to move a brand-new limb as if they'd been born with it?
It wasn't possible.
Nobody knew that better than I did.
The arms and legs I already had were proof enough.
Trait: Mantula's Blade
Application Site: Back
Effect: Attaches 1m mantis-like blades to the tips of 2m tarantula limbs.
Cost: [Variable - Devolut 33]
Trait development presented two options.
"Variable," which scaled the ability's power to my three basic stats, and "Fixed," which granted a set degree of strength.
Fixed cost could produce far more efficient abilities for the same Devolut investment.
Right now, I could take Mantula's Blade on Fixed and give those limbs bullet-speed striking force and hardness exceeding steel.
But on Variable, the limbs' power scaled to my Muscle Strength, and the blades' durability scaled to my Tissue Hardness.
In practice, that meant I was getting the strength of a novice lifter and blades only as tough as chainmail.
Fixed was better for immediate use. But with a long-term plan of raising all three basic stats, Variable was the smarter investment.
I took the long view and chose Variable.
The game had only been running for a bit over a month—no need for short-sighted decisions.
Mantula's Blade, the finished product.
One of Wonderstein's signature techniques.
Spider-like appendages burst from the back, mantis blades scything outward.
I'd only grown two so far, but I'd tested their power yesterday: a full squad of soldiers armed with swords and plate armor came at me, and I'd be able to wipe them out within three minutes.
"Monster..."
Derek muttered the word, staring at me.
When the troupe looked at me like that, I'd always felt a little wronged.
I'm just a normal guy, I'd think.
Now I could finally admit it.
Yeah. I'm a monster.
"How about you put down what's in your hand first?"
"Don't mock me!"
Whish.
I moved the blades.
Silver arcs split the air, flying toward him.
The Muscle Strength of a novice lifter—speed was nothing impressive.
Derek ducked behind the light fixture.
He tucked himself behind the one remaining chain, gambling I wouldn't risk swinging wildly.
This was a little dangerous.
The original Wonderstein would have ignored a flimsy shield like that and skewered him clean through.
My current self didn't have that fine a command over the blades.
When I'd first arrived here, it took a full day just to walk naturally and four more to handle chopsticks—and that was mostly the body's residual memory carrying me.
I'd only built this ability yesterday.
Watching the troupe drill their own techniques had lit a fire under me, so I'd given it a shot.
Derek studied me.
I had a pretty good read on what he was after.
I already knew his ability.
Matter Permeation.
He could phase through walls and floors—a literal ghost.
The power had its limits: maybe a mask or a set of clothes could pass through with him, but something heavy, like a pair of bolt cutters? Not happening.
His plan was to cut the chain and then use Matter Permeation to escape.
My plan was to use Mantula's Blade to keep him from cutting the chain.
Except my clumsy handling might slice through the chain by accident, and that was exactly what I was afraid of.
As we stood there locked in stalemate,
voices drifted up from the stage below.
—Can you prove it? Can you prove your love?
Without meaning to, I flashed back to the green room.
The count advancing slowly on Ella.
Ella shrinking back, step by step, as though frightened.
The count's face closing in on hers...
Ah.
My focus slipped for a fraction of a second.
The ghost didn't miss it.
He snapped the last chain with the cutters.
Whoosh.
The fixture plunged.
A crash, and then the sound of something splintering.
The ghost phased straight through the wall and vanished.
I sprinted toward where the fixture had fallen.
Was that his real plan all along?
To drop it precisely there?
What if he'd just... swung blind and let go?
What if it hit someone else?
I risked exposing myself and leaned over the edge, looking down.
***
Ella stepped onstage as the second act began.
Wonderstein's words kept drifting back to her—that he'd be watching from the audience.
She fixed her eyes straight ahead and refused to scan the house.
Catching his gaze, even by accident, felt like it would be mortifying.
But her eyes flicked that way on their own, and she registered the empty seat.
Hah.
A deflated sigh escaped her.
All that tension, and for what? She felt like an idiot.
Ridiculous man. Could've just kept his mouth shut.
Still, she'd believed him about the Circus Grand Prix, believed in his ability to write a script. If anyone could give her useful notes on her performance—what worked, what felt off—she thought it'd be him.
Ella decided to stop caring about him at all.
She focused purely on the role.
The play rolled on, and they reached the part Wonderstein had cut short earlier.
"Can you prove it? Can you prove your love?"
The count approached.
Something in his eyes looked different from the green room—a smug, cunning, hungry gleam.
A flicker of revulsion rose in her throat, and then lightning struck.
CRASH. CRUNCH.
A light fixture, dropped from the ceiling.
It pulverized the count's head.
Blood and tissue sprayed across Ella's maid costume.
The audience shrieked, surging to their feet.
A year ago, Ella might have rolled her eyes back and fainted on the spot.
But she'd lived through far worse hellscapes since then.
Instinctively, she lifted her head toward the ceiling where the fixture had fallen.
Only from where she stood, at that exact angle, could anyone see through the gap.
In the darkness of the ceiling, among the steel framework.
A man was looking down at her, smiling.
Frank Wonderstein.
She blinked once, and he was gone.
But Ella stared blankly at the spot where he'd been.
Kept staring until the other actors and crew rushed up onto the stage.