Lost in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  Before I reached my door, I realized she was angling off toward mine. As I reached for the door, she put her hand on mine.

  “I don’t want our next trip to turn out like our last one, okay?” she said.

  I smiled and opened the door, stepping aside to allow her in first. “Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson. Next time, we’ll start with the micro-drones. But first we have to wait for Siena to contact us. Come on.”

  What Malcolm had said was right, and I didn’t want to put it off any longer.

  She smiled back and sauntered in. I followed in after her. All I had to do from then on was wait for Siena and anyone who recognized the locations we found on the laboratory monitors to post them on her forum. We didn’t have to wait long.

  Chapter 32: Reply

  Again, Frank awoke in her room, ears ringing. She rubbed her eyes, feeling like her warning about Raymond hadn’t been fully heeded. At first she thought this was because they had bigger things to worry about, but when hearing from Siena that those other things included finding the Screamers IRL, she felt frustrated.

  Maybe she had delivered the message wrong. Maybe she had squandered an opportunity to confront Raymond about his collaboration with Malcolm. Maybe no one would have listened to her either way. Still, she had tried.

  Wouldn’t the fact that one of the Screamers was active on social media be of significance considering he’s one of the people they would soon be knocking on the door of? Who knows what they will be running into?

  She yawned as she sat up, an anxious feeling coming over her—one she could only relate to the feeling of waking from a nightmare. She looked around her darkened room, seeing on her computer monitor’s clock that it was midnight. To her surprise, she noticed a message alert. After all, she had checked her messages before she had gone under.

  She kicked her legs off the bed, leaned over, and clicked on the alert icon to bring up the message. Her first assumption that it was a message from Siena or Tessa or even one of the others was turned on its head as her blurry vision made out the name of the person messaging her: Raymond L. Cranel.

  “Holy crap,” she said as she shifted onto her chair and swiveled to face the monitor.

  It was a reply to her previous message: “I want to try and possess an NPC or another avatar. Is this possible? Can you teach me?”

  The reply read: “It’s possible. You would have to manipulate the game mechanics a bit, maybe do some code hacks, but it is possible.”

  Heart racing, Frank’s fingers worked of their own volition, typing the words: “Would you show me?”

  A minute passed, maybe two, as she did nothing but stare at her screen in anticipation. Then the message screen signaled his reply. When it popped up, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  “I think we should meet IRL.”

  Chapter 33: Departure

  At the sound of my phone vibrating, I grabbed it and noticed that two text message alerts had popped up. The first read:

  “I want to talk in-game. Meet me at Claw Plateaus.”

  The Claw Plateaus didn’t have an associated dungeon. It was more of a landmark than anything, so it was usually a good quiet place to talk. However, it wasn’t until I read the next message that I realized why my phone didn’t recognize the number.

  “Oh, and this is Siena by the way. Got your number from Chloe after getting her number from Keri. Hope you don’t mind, but at least it shows I’m putting the effort in.”

  I didn’t hesitate to swallow some DSD and enter the Dream State. By this point, I was more concerned with what the forum would or would not find in the photos than that Siena would decide to withhold it. In fact, given Siena’s friend was one of the Screamers who she wanted to free as well, I was beginning to think my concern that she wouldn’t follow through was unwarranted. Finding the Screamers was in her best interest as well, after all.

  As I appeared in the New Calandor Fields, I summoned Peragon and flew over to the giant black fingers that made up the tall Claw Plateaus. Like the last time I had come here to talk with Data, the sky was dark, the endless sun above Apollo’s Lookout blocked by clouds and nearby mountain ranges.

  Ominous.

  I couldn’t see anyone at the mountain peaks, so I swooped down and landed on the short grass at the base. Although it was still day, the darkness made an automated moon appear, peeking out from behind the silver clouds. Uneasy because of the silence, I peered around to find Siena behind me, armed with her scythe.

  I whirled about. “Oh, come on, Siena. I thought we were past this!”

  I equipped my Sapphire Edge with a flash and raised it just as she swung the blade of her scythe at my neck. However, as I swung it down, the blue blade passed right through her, and I felt a sharp pressure against my neck.

  “A Reflector, am I right?” I grinned as I realized what she had used. “It has the same properties as the Illusion spell.”

  “That’s right,” Siena whispered in my ear. “I just wanted to prove to you that even if you were using RTS and I wasn’t, with the right item, I’d still win. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I never got a chance to use it against you in the Coliseum.”

  My shoulders slumped as she pulled the blade of her scythe away from my neck. “Is that really why you asked me to come in-game—to prove to yourself something we both already knew to be true—or do you have the locations of where the photos were taken?”

  Siena scoffed. “What do you think? The forum bore fruit. I got addresses for four of the six photos. Someone said he might know the fifth, but we’ll have to wait to find out. I’ve already sent them to your email.” She grinned. “Chloe gave me that, too.”

  A huge weight felt like it had been lifted off my shoulders. Finally, actual locations we could track down, places where the betas would be kept and not just some server. We were one step closer to finding them.

  “You talked to Malcolm, didn’t you?” I asked as another idea came to me. “When he gave you the FPS?”

  “RTS,” she corrected.

  “Whatever. Did he happen to let anything slip that you think would help us?”

  Siena shook her head. “Not really. I just trained with Kristie in Malcolm’s Debug Room. But during that time, I did notice something was off about her.”

  “And?”

  “Although she was barely able to hold a conversation and her emotions had been dampened . . .” She breathed out heavily. “A part of her was still there; I could see it beneath the surface. Even in-game, I could tell she fighting it, whether it was Malcolm’s manipulation, or . . .”

  “Or she was drugged,” I finished for her, knowing how zombified and compliant the drugs at the Wona asylum had made me.

  “Malcolm said that he’s trying to help her, but she’s his captive, I just know it. He’s forcing her to—” Her lips pulled inward, and for a second, I thought she was holding back tears. “I want her to go back to normal, Noah. I want my friend back. Find her for me, please.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll have her back home in no time.” I winked at her. “Just hold down the fort until we get back.”

  She nodded and turned. “You have my number now. I’m expecting you to call me as soon as you get back.”

  I raised my palms. “Of course. I’m probably going to need you to finish off Malcolm, anyway.”

  She grinned over her shoulder and said, “Too right,” before she vanished with her teleportation hack.

  Although I hated only entering the Dream State for minor things like a conversation, I was glad we’d managed to talk face to face before I left. Her request was all the incentive I needed to begin our travel with a level of determination and enthusiasm only Siena could infect me with. We had everything we needed, and now just had to make it happen.

  ***

  Knowing the location of four of the photos found on the Jaco Island server, we planned our flight route. Two of the addresses were in Europe, and t
wo were in Asia. The photo that had been aligned with Lucas’s profile was located in a suburb of Berlin, and Chloe and I booked tickets to fly there right away.

  “Going to visit one of Wona’s first servers, huh?” Windsor asked when I told him where we were going during our last meeting before we left.

  “What do you mean?”

  He pulled out a dossier from his desk and gestured to the title: Wona—Berlin Branch. “Berlin was the tech capital of Europe when Wona was first starting up. I thought maybe you might’ve wanted to visit it.”

  I grinned. “That’s not really the reason why we’re heading there.”

  Windsor frowned and eyed me skeptically for a moment. He then sighed, stood, and walked over to a wall cupboard in his office. Taking a key from his lanyard, he unlocked the cupboard and pulled out a briefcase.

  “If you’re planning what I think you are . . .” He handed it to me. “You might need these drones back.”

  “Oh, right. These came in handy last time.”

  “The three you didn’t blow up,” Windsor emphasized, then put out his hand and I shook it. “Be careful.”

  I left the office and went down to my room to pack my things. Chloe was already packed and ready to go.

  She looked up at me from her carry bag. “So?”

  I raised my brow at her and lifted my phone. “I’ve got the locations programmed into my phone. No more distractions.”

  Chloe grinned and nodded. “Alright. Let’s go find Lucas.”

  Acknowledgments

  Book 1 was inspired by a car crash, book 2 was inspired by being rear-ended on the way to dinner, book 3 was inspired by having the car repaired, and book 4 was inspired by that same car, to whom this book is dedicated, being sold on to someone else. The rest goes to Hayley Woolf, my project manager, Emma Hoggan, and all those who are following the saga.

  About the Author

  Growing up in the small town of Timaru, New Zealand, Christopher Keene broke the family trend of becoming an accountant by becoming a writer instead. While studying for his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Canterbury, he took the school’s creative writing course in the hopes of someday seeing his own book on the shelf in his favorite bookstores. He is now the published author of the Dream State Saga, as well as his new epic fantasy trilogy, A Cycle of Blades. In his spare time, he writes a blog to share his love of the fantasy and science fiction genres in novels, films, comics, games, and anime (fantasyandanime.wordpress.com).

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