Baa, baa, black sheep. Chapter 6

6

I was in the village street again, and stone houses were looking at me with their dark windows. Now I wasn’t alone, Johnny Lancelot was with me. We could try forced exit. It was like pressing ‘escape’ button on old time computers. I think-sent ‘seven’ to Andrew, which meant I wanted him to generate our forced exit.
Nothing happened. Then my PDA got a message. It read:
“Tried and failed. System not responding. Go to game exit point. Coordinates N 53.360387, W1.777039”
Well, at least it was something. Now we knew that the game we were in was working badly. Every game has forced exit, except when it is controlled by another program. A dangerous program coded by a bad man. Was this program the black sheep? I wanted to know more about that animal. So I think-sent “three” to Andrew again.
His message came fast. It read:
“Disassembling gave nothing. Can’t identify programming language. Binary code analysis gave a very complicated structure. This is a very serious program written by a very clever man. Be careful.”
And that was all we had. Johnny Lancelot was looking at me with hope.
‘Well, sir! Everything is under control. Now we need a horse for you and a donkey for me. Let’s buy them’.
When I entered the game I had not only guns, but a lot of money. There were only two problems. Was the money right for this time, and how much was the horse.
I saw some dirty children playing with a puppy. I came to them and said, ’Listen, children! My master needs a horse. He has lost his horse fighting a dragon not far from here. The dragon is dead, but so is the master’s horse. We shall pay for a new one generously’.
The children didn’t say anything, they just laughed. I repeated my words, but again the children laughed and said nothing. So they couldn’t talk. I had to find somebody else.
Suddenly I heard a voice. It was an old man’s voice.
‘You need a horse? Have you coins?’ I looked and saw a very old man with a stick. His hair was long and grey, his face was old and dark. His clothes were old, too. And they were dirty.
I showed him a small bag with my coins. I shook it, and there was a metallic sound which the coins made.
‘Good! Come with me, both of you.’
And we followed the man.