Daemon

left, but without weapons it was rather pointless. Gragg peered over the lip of the trench, and he could see the familiar German MG42 nests up at the edge of the ruins.
    Strangely, the Krauts didn’t open fire immediately. Gragg let his avatar stand there for a moment, and still no tracer bullets came streaming down. He decided to push his luck and hopped up on the fire step – then out into full view.
    Still no gunfire. The Germans just sat there.
    Gragg started walking toward their lines. He had never approached the monastery successfully from this angle, and now he could see three machine gun nests aiming down at him from a hundred meters away. The gun barrels followed him as he walked, but still they did not fire.
    Gragg kept walking, straight up to the center machine gun. The loader crouched next to the gunner. The NPCs had that familiar blank look on their faces. Before long, Gragg was within ten feet of the machine gun barrel. It stared down onhim, ready to send his avatar into the spectator list. He was so close he could see the rank of the gunner from the textured graphic patches on his shoulders:
Unterfeldwebel
. A sergeant.
    To Gragg’s shock, the gunner released his grip on the weapon and held up his hand. ‘Halt!’ He peered at Gragg closely.
‘Ich kenne Deinen Namen.’
He rose and motioned for Gragg to follow.
‘Komm mit!’
With that the gunner walked off into the ruins. Gragg hurried to follow. A dozen German soldiers rose from their concealed positions among the rocks and watched with glaring eyes as he passed.
    The Unterfeldwebel brought Gragg through a maze of rooms and splintered wreckage. Around each corner were more Kraut soldiers clutching Schmeissers or manning mortar positions. Every time he walked past, the Krauts would whisper to each other and point. Gragg had to hand it to Sobol; every detail was there. It gave him a strong sense of being an outsider in an enemy stronghold.
    Gragg was led down into the same cellar where he’d first encountered Boerner in the Monte Cassino map. They walked between the wine casks toward the doorway in the opposite wall. Torches lit their way, flickering against the darkness under the influence of a digital breeze. Gragg glanced around. There was no sign of the fire damage from the earlier game.
    They headed into the dark passage that led to the round tower base. The ray of sunlight still shined there, illuminating the wall where the encrypted message once was, but now it was carved with:
    29.3935 ′95.3933
    Gragg turned his avatar to face the familiar metal screen through which he’d spoken to Boerner before. It was dark behind the screen. Suddenly the space beyond filled with the flare of a match, and Boerner was there, lighting his cigarette at the end of that damned filter. He cupped it with his hand until it lit, then breathed out a cloud of voluminous smoke.
    The Unterfeldwebel gave a sharp salute with a click of hisboot heels and scurried out, leaving Gragg’s avatar alone with Boerner. Boerner looked up and fixed his monocle over his left eye.
    ‘Vee meet again,
mein freund
.’ Boerner clamped the cigarette holder in one corner of his mouth. ‘You know ze console, yes? Use it zu answer my qvestions.’ Boerner waited for some response.
    The console. Gragg usually used it for cheat codes. He peered at the keyboard and hit the tilde key. A DOS-like console appeared in the northern third of the screen. It listed a number of scripting events that had already taken place – such as the appearance of the Boerner model and the creation of the objects in this room. The console served as both a comprehensive log of program events and a command console for overriding game settings. Basically, it gave him a blinking cursor where he could type input.
    As soon as the console appeared, Boerner said, ‘Excellent. You haf some knowledge zu find me again. Vee vill zee how much knowledge you haf. Haf you come alone? Yes or no?’
    Gragg sucked in a breath. He didn’t want to admit he was alone, but lying made him more nervous. He typed
Yes
at the console line and hit ENTER.
    Boerner’s avatar kneeled down so he could ‘see’ Gragg’s avatar around the console window. He smiled at him. ‘Gut. Haf you told anyone else about zis?’
    Gragg hesitated again. What better way to get killed than to say yes? He remembered all too well the video images of body bags from Sobol’s estate. But what would that gain Sobol? Why go through so much effort just