by K. T. Hanna
“I’ll listen, you know.” Sinister’s voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper, and her breath was warm against Murmur’s arm as she hugged it briefly.
Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, just when she was about to give into the panic, Sin was there. Always there. Mur smiled softly, swallowing the emotions that had threatened to overwhelm her but moments ago. “I know. Thank you.”
Sin grinned. “And speaking of which, I’m trying not to fall asleep in the game, so we need to figure out where we’re meeting...”
But she stopped short as the rest of the group barreled into the mostly empty workshop with Telvar, Emilarth, and Belius bringing up the rear. The scowl on the old locus’s face meant they’d probably had to drag him there. For all his faults, Murmur knew he cared in his own weird, developing-AI way.
Beastial sat down on the floor with thump and leaned on Shir-Khan’s back. “Can we do this before I fall asleep?”
Telvar nodded, his lips pursed in a straight line. Upon closer inspection he seemed almost translucent. The gold of his scales was a little dull, and his presence diminished more than Murmur had seen before. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, if she could she do anything, but Emilarth dove straight into her speech, and Mur didn’t have a chance.
“Arita has been evolving.” Emilarth scowled briefly, like she was running through stuff in her head. “That’s not quite accurate, but it’ll have to do. As AIs it’s been our responsibility—nay, our coding—to relegate this world. With direction from humans who programmed us and the visual models, we populated the world, worked with varying degrees of scripted content in order to produce this world the way it is. Something that learns from itself, grows organically as the game is played, has consequences such as vendettas and faction changes that take work to undo.”
“We know this.” Havoc’s impatience won out. “Tell us something we don’t know.”
Maybe they should have waited until they weren’t tired anymore.
Emilarth barely glanced at the necromancer and shrugged. “The point is, there was no way to accomplish that within the world without having the AI-infused NPCs and the world act and react in the same way as all of the encounter—organically. While Arita evolves, she governed her own conscience which led to her going rogue, so to speak, to produce a completely different outcome to Riasli’s.”
Murmur processed the words as best she could, uncertain how two of them could be so vastly different. But people were different. Given their surroundings and opportunities, they would grow in different ways. “Who or what is it that’s giving them these different opportunities, these different places from which to grow?”
Telvar smiled, but there was sadness to it. “That’s what we’re trying to determine. Whether it’s an underlying fault in our actual build or whether we’ve missed something obvious that’s floating around inside here.”
“That seems far more likely,” Sinister interrupted. “Something in here having infected certain NPCs with a virus of sorts.”
Belius shook his head. “That’s not how it works. In order for something in here to be infected and not affecting us, it would have to be targeted specifically at certain aspects so that it avoided us and detection by us.”
“And you’ve no clue what this is?” Murmur asked, already knowing the answer.
“Exactly.” Emilarth hesitated, eyeing Telvar briefly. Murmur didn’t appreciate the fact that they were keeping something from her. Something that might affect her brain, her life even, but she didn’t push because she was quite certain they weren’t sure enough to reveal what they knew anyway, or they would have.
Instead, she asked something entirely different. “So, how is it Arita killed me, and I’m still here?”
There, that was a much better question for them, wasn’t it?
“Damn it.” Devlish sat down after the AIs had left the workshop and began to trigger his log out process. “Forgot to ask Tel a few things, but I’m too tired to keep my damned thoughts together right now. Remind me I had questions when I log back in, Mur?”
“Sure.” She nodded and watched as he winked out of the world a few seconds later. Everyone followed suit, waving at her, partially falling asleep already as they did so.
Well, everyone except Sinister. Sin had a way of staying around like a pleasant aroma of roses. Right now, Murmur really needed that calming and soothing sensation.
“You going to log out and go to sleep, Mur?” Her friend asked, watching her with those deep red eyes.
Mur shrugged. “Kind of. But on the other hand, I don’t really want to sleep in case I dream. That last stint in limbo wasn’t as nice as the first.”
“Understandable.” Sin paused. “Tell me, do you think you might actually be able to log out? Or are you just getting your hopes up?”
“I don’t know. I know that each time I attempt it I manage to push it a little further. But I’m also scared to see what’s beyond that, you know?” Sin was the only person Murmur could talk to about this. In a way, she was glad the rest were gone.
“I can see that.” Sin squeezed Mur’s hand. “For what it’s worth. I know you can do it. We just have some bumps we need to get over before it happens.”
Murmur smiled until she frowned, almost ready to kick herself. “Damn it. I forgot to ask Telvar about the location of the other dungeon on this continent. I mean, apart from Vahrir. We can’t access that until like max level, right?”
Sinister shrugged. “I think we can technically access that at forty-eight.”
Murmur raised an eyebrow. “Do we look forty-eight to you?”
“You didn’t ask that. You asked when we can access it.” Sinister poked out her tongue, a twinkle in her eye. Pedantic and endearing.
“True. I just don’t remember seeing one around here. Hazenthorne we just did. Vahrir we’re too little for. So where is the other damned dungeon on Tarishna.” For a moment Murmur felt the urge to stamp her foot, but decided against it considering how juvenile the reaction sounded.
“I can’t say I blame you for missing it.”
Murmur whirled around to the entrance of the crafting hall, and smiled when her eyes rested on Telvar. His solidity had guided her through that limbo, helped her regain her foothold in her Somnian self, and made her feel like she wasn’t completely alone in this. She’d lost count of the amount of times he’d already saved her. It was good to see him, even if he seemed tired.
She frowned. “Are you okay?”
Telvar grinned, a ghost of worry flitting over his face so fast she almost didn’t register it. “I am fine. And so are you.”
The unspoken for now lingered in the air, and Murmur wasn’t sure what to do with it. So she ignored it. “Okay, then. Where is this almighty dungeon?”
“It’s not really a dungeon, more like a cliff-faced empty and haunted castle.” Telvar opened his mouth to say more, but Havoc had just walked in and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. Murmur hadn’t realized he was still in-game.
“Did you just say the magic words? Haunted? Doesn’t that mean undead and ghosts?” His eyes sparkled like he’d just hit the jackpot.
Telvar chuckled. “Well, yes, it is, but you may not find your spells will work on ghosts. Ghosts aren’t technically undead. They’re ghosts. But there will be some undead around too,” he added hastily when he saw how crestfallen Havoc was.
“But where is it?” Murmur pushed the point, needing to know so she could plan out the rest of their leveling. They still had so much to accomplish. So much to figure out. Like why she could die and how her pain lingered. If she could log out and what even that damned headset had done to her.
Telvar smiled and winked deliberately. “Right now, it’s in one place, but if you don’t reach it first, it will close and you’ll have to find the next location.”
“What now?” Sinister stifled
a yawn as she spoke.
“Let’s just say this dungeon has no fixed spot. There are a wealth of different histories that all revolve around Stellaein and the locus. Because of this, each time that dungeon is approached, it is triggered in a different location. No two will be the same.”
Murmur didn’t even want to contemplate how much that hurt her brain. “So where on Tarishna is the current one?” There, that question should get her the answer she wanted.
Telvar grinned, his locus lips pulling back widely. “Why, it’s carved into the cliff-face just north of Stellaein. Basically, you’ll have to levitate or abseil into it.”
“Who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?” She groaned.
“Well,” Telvar’s smile was nothing short of evil. “I do believe you call her Mom.”
Wren paced the floor of her make-believe bedroom. Once again nursing a freaking headache that wouldn’t quit after attempting, completely futilely, to exit the damned game for real again. She glanced at the time in her AR settings and frowned. Her mother should have been here by now. Wren desperately needed to rest her mind, but they had to talk. She had to put her mom’s mind to rest.
Pain shot through Wren’s chest again, and she coughed, stumbling so hard she had to grab onto the bed for support, but her hand shot right through the iron railing that should have been there. She fell, and the floor pixelated for a brief moment, like it was coming apart at the virtual seams. The anchor on her desk flickered in and out of visibility, and her head began to pound even more.
Thoughts rushed passed her mind, just out of reach. Voices spoke in words she couldn’t exactly hear, but knew they’d been uttered. She clenched her eyes shut and rocked on her hands and knees, trying to assuage the clamoring in her mind.
And then, as if a rubber band had snapped, her head cleared.
“Wren?” But it wasn’t her mom, and it wasn’t one of the AIs speaking in her mind. It was her dad. “Wrennie?”
Then he was there, rushing to her side, lifting her up with him and sitting on the bed. The bed that had winked out of existence but a short time ago when she was the only one there. Things appeared to be solid again, as if they’d never changed, but she knew it hadn’t been like that moments ago. The solidity had failed enough to send her crashing to her knees when it should have saved her. Not only were glitches appearing in Somnia, but they were extending out past it, here to her very room. To the one place she could go to recover.
“Dad?” she asked, her breath coming in gasps. She fought the pain that still gripped her chest. Like a vice, it wouldn’t let go. Looking down, she half-expected the hole to be there again, gaping and agonizing, full of flesh and viscera, cauterized and vacant.
But it wasn’t, or at least it didn’t seem to be. Instead, she wore her immersion suit, the pale blue lines flickered as she moved, darting down like beams of light trying to lead the way to somewhere she’d never been.
“Wren. It’s okay. Mom couldn’t get away. There’s been so much going on. Are you okay?” He rocked her now, a soothing gesture, comforting. Just like when she’d been small, when the only protection she’d needed was a hug from her dad.
“I just needed to talk to her. I needed to let you both know I can die in game and be okay.”
His arms stiffened around her, and then hugged her tighter. She could feel the hitch in his breath, the tears he refused to give voice to, and let him sit like that for a few moments before speaking again.
“It has some after effects, but I seem fine.”
“Like what?” he asked, his tone likely sharper than he intended, and he righted her enough so they could look at each other.
“Pain where the fatal injury occurred, like my brain can’t quite let go of the concept. And intermittent headaches on the regular.” She wracked her brains trying to find something else. But that was about it for now.
He frowned at her, concern furrowing his brow. “Just promise me you won’t be reckless. Only die if you absolutely have to.”
Wren couldn’t help it. She started laughing. Dying only if she had to. Well, she hadn’t really been thinking about dying any other time. It wasn’t her intention to constantly lose experience. While she could see what her father meant, it struck her as extraordinarily comical.
“Wren?” he began, the worry entering his voice again, but then he started laughing too.
It felt good to let that tension out, felt good to feel and let herself just be. Even if this was all an illusion too.
Storm Entertainment
Somnia Online Division
Game Development Offices
Late Day Seventeen
Laria hung up the connection and buried her head in her hands. The amount of work she still had to get through, the amount of calculations and test data—it was overwhelming and the reports were due in the morning.
She had wanted to meet Wren more than anything else in the world, but keeping her safe came first, and this was the only way to do that. Reports, reports, and more reports. She lowered her head to the desk and beat it softly against the wood. The dull thud gave her a rhythm she almost didn’t want to stop. Except slowly it droned like an empty ache.
Even if her AR wasn’t activated, all she saw in front of her eyes were numbers. Huge columns of test data and calculations on uptime and potential pitfalls for downtime. The ratios of players to time spent online, of progression to groups of players. Top guilds listed in detail with their exact movement summarized neatly into tables of impersonal data.
And last but not least, the brainwave activity gathered by the headsets. Not only was it some of the most important information, but it was the information that could potentially lead their bosses and their investors to finding Wren. The trick was to include her data without tipping them off to exactly what was wrong with it.
For the few days where Wren had barely logged off or napped, Laria was hoping to divert attention from the almost twenty-four seven usage of her headset. As luck had it, there were a lot of headsets routinely in game for around the eighteen to twenty-hour mark. Right at the beginning there had even been several hundred who were connected close to twenty-four hours a day for the first week. Some people gamed as if their lives depended on it, and for that, Laria wanted to kiss them. Thanks to their dedication, Wren’s times didn’t look quite so out of the ordinary.
She hoped she could convince them that this one anomaly, her daughter, basically didn’t remove her headgear and slept in it, leading to monitored brainwaves most of the time. Maybe. It was a stretch.
Laria glanced up just in time to see the shadow pass in front of her window. She watched as the handle to her office door turned slowly with no knock preceding it. Granted, it probably looked like she wasn’t in her office from outside it. It was very late, and she was burning the about to be midnight oil. Since most of her stuff was done in augmented reality, she didn’t see the need for any of her larger lights to be on. Just the nightlight that all offices had.
The thing was, she’d locked her door, and so whoever—and she was pretty certain she knew who it was—was trying to open her door was effectively lock picking it. They were breaking into her office.
She activated the recording device built into her AR, needing to have this on the server just in case and tapped into Shayla’s AR channel. She knew her friend had finally gone home for once, and was probably asleep. Laria also knew that she was the only person left in the office, or at least, she should have been. While she was often outspoken and direct, the thought of someone entering her office without permission scared her.
She looked around, trying not to make a sound, and wondering why she did so even during the action. Maybe they’d get scared if they heard her, but then she’d also not be able to catch them red handed and this was too good a chance to pass up.
Slowly, after the soft click that depicted the lock had been successfu
lly picked, Laria cursed the fact that the server room had integrated security and her lock was old-fashioned and crap. The door opened inward, inching softly, its well-oiled hinges not letting out a peep.
Just as she’d thought, the perpetrator inched around the door, as quietly as possible, as if he knew there could be something triggered by sound that he might need to avoid. Forcing herself to sit up straight in her seat, she watched as he began to close the door just as silently behind him, making sure her AR settings were solid and functioning.
When he was done, she cleared her throat and spoke. Her voice was loud, her tone irritated, and she thanked whatever power there was that she didn’t shake while speaking.
“And just what do you think you’re doing entering my office at this hour of the night, James?”
“You died.” Telvar stood in the kitchen with his hands on his hips, raising an artfully arranged lacerta eye ridge at her. “And you were just going to wander off without talking to me about it?”
Murmur glanced at him, and abandoned preparations to leave. “We already talked to all three of you. I died. And I’m still here. Apparently Somnia feels somewhat attached to me.”
“No side effects? Nothing odd happened? Is there nothing you need to talk to me about?” His eyes held a bright intensity. And she knew he’d been there. He was part of the reason she’d made it back.
“I can still feel it.” She muttered the words, not quite wanting to say them out loud, because doing so would make it real, not just a figment of her imagination. Having already broken down and told her father, it made her stomach queasy even if it was slightly relieved.
“Still feel the death?” His gaze bored into her, unsettling yet warm at the same time.