by Lucas Flint
“You are not?” said Yamamoto in a questioning tone. “How can that be? The Z-Virus was an extremely contagious disease. It is impossible not to spread it once you yourself have it unless you are Quarantined.”
“I know, but I’ve been able to find a way to contain it in my body,” I said. “Cy can back me up on that. Right, Cy?”
Cy nodded quickly. He seemed to be staring at Aimi and Riku’s weapons, no doubt thinking about how painful they were going to be. “Yeah, definitely. I’ve been with boss for a while and I haven’t gotten it at all. He’s perfectly safe.”
“See?” I said. “The only reason I wanted to let you guys know this is for disclosure. If we’re going to be working together to stop the Stalking Shadows and their spread of the Z-Virus, then I feel like it is only right that we are honest with each other.”
For a moment, I thought Yamamoto was going to order Aimi and Riku to kill me anyway. Wouldn’t surprise me. That was how Z-Virus carriers were treated back in the day from what I understood. Z-Virus carriers were to be killed on sight and their remains burned to ash because there was no efficient way of dealing with them other than that. And I wasn’t sure whether I would agree with them on that or if I would fight to the death myself.
Then Yamamoto nodded slowly. “I see. I believe you are telling the truth, both about being a Z-Virus carrier and also keeping it contained within your own body. It explains why your skin looks so pale.”
I touched the parts of my skin that my body did not cover up. I had looked in a mirror back in my Base and saw that my skin was definitely becoming paler. It still wasn’t as pale as Robert’s or Kuwabara’s skin, but it was getting there. And a glance at my screen showed that I was about 9% Infected now, which worried me greatly because I had no idea what would happen once I reached 10%. Hopefully nothing.
“Thank you for your honesty,” said Yamamoto with another nod of his head. “I greatly appreciate it.”
A new notification appeared both me all of a sudden:
[Grandmaster Yamamoto] appreciates your honesty even at the risk of your own life! Your relationship with [Grandmaster Yamamoto] has increased from ‘Friendly’ to ‘Trusted.’ Increase your relationship with [Grandmaster Yamamoto] even more in order to gain access to new missions and opportunities!
Huh. I guess honesty really was the best policy. Not that I was complaining. I wasn’t looking forward to dying two times in the same night, even if it was at the hands of different people.
Although Yamamoto no longer looked worried, I could tell Riku and especially Aimi were still rather upset with this revelation. I didn’t get any notifications about my relationship with them, but the way I saw it, I only really needed to be friends with Yamamoto. As long as Yamamoto liked me, then there was nothing Aimi or Riku could do about me. I hoped, at least.
“Now, then,” said Yamamoto as he stroked his beard. “The destruction of the Stalking Shadows’ warehouse and the Z-Virus bottles has indeed struck a great blow to the Stalking Shadows, but it has not defeated them, not by a long shot. The Stalking Shadows will only fall once we take out their leader, Master Haru.”
“Is that what we’re going to do next?” I asked.
Yamamoto nodded. “Indeed. After your help in destroying the Stalking Shadows’ Z-Virus supply, I now feel like I can safely entrust you with the mission of defeating Master Haru. The Stalking Shadows are a snake. If we can cut off the head—Master Haru—then the rest of the body will die. It is that simple.”
A notification appeared in my view, which read thus:
MISSION: Defeat the Stalking Shadows III
Due to your help in striking a near-crippling blow to the Stalking Shadows’ criminal empire, Grandmaster Yamamoto has asked you to participate in the defeat of Master Haru. You have proved yourself to be a trustworthy ally to the Ninja Guild. Don’t mess this up.
ALIGNMENT: Hero
DIFFICULTY: Intense
RARITY: Unique
SUCCESS: Defeat Master Haru and end the Stalking Shadows
FAILURE: Get killed by Master Haru or one of his Stalking Shadow acolytes
REWARDS: Higher reputation with the Ninja Guild, plus a complete set of Ninjutsu Armor [Rare] and 10,000 credits. Other rewards dependent on how well one completes the mission. Only available after the entire mission has been completed.
ACCEPT? Y/N
That was a no-brainer. I accepted the mission and said to Yamamoto, “So, when do we get started?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
As it turned out, however, we weren’t quite ready to get started right away. The mission to defeat Master Haru once and for all was to take place the following night at the current headquarters of the Stalking Shadows, a building on the south side of Adventure City labeled ‘Z-VIRUS FACTORY.’ I had never been to that part of the city before, so I didn’t quite know where it was. But thanks to the glowing dot on my map with the above label, I knew I would be able to find it pretty easily once I set out to do it.
From what I understood, the plan was for me, Cy, and a whole bunch of Ninja Guild members—ranging from normal [Ninja Assassins] to [Elite Ninja Assassins] and everything in between—were going to be part of a coordinated strike on the Stalking Shadows’ factory. The Ninja Guild spies had informed us that Master Haru was going to be on the defensive now and that we would need to act quickly and decisively if we were going to take him down once and for all, but Yamamoto thought that rushing into the next mission, especially after the events of tonight, would be a bad idea. He implied he had to speak to some allies about this as well, but when I pressed him for information, Yamamoto refused to tell us who his ‘allies’ were. I wondered if there were other ninja guilds around the city he was referring to or if he was referring to some non-ninja allies he had.
I also learned that the Stalking Shadows’ ‘headquarters’ was actually the factory where they were manufacturing the Z-Virus en mass. Supposedly, Master Haru spent a lot of time there overlooking the production of the Z-Virus itself. That was why we believed Master Haru was going to be there tonight.
In any case, I couldn’t complain about this decision. After tonight, Cy and I needed to take some time to rest and recover from all of the excitement anyway. Plus, I needed to spend the next day getting ready for the final mission tonight. Although I couldn’t prove it, I had the strongest feeling that Atmosfear was also going to be at the Stalking Shadows’ factory tonight. If he was, then we would inevitably fight each other, so I had to be ready for that as well.
That night, Cy and I returned to the Base and we both slept very well. Well, Cy slept well, anyway. I had trouble sleeping. My dreams were full of dark-clad ninja chasing me down hallways or shambling zombies pursuing me down increasingly narrow alleyways. Sometimes the dreams got so realistic that I wasn’t sure if I was in reality anymore, although when you thought about it, what made my dreams any less real than the game world I inhabited?
In any case, when I woke up the next morning bleary-eyed from a lack of good sleep, I almost hit the snooze button on my alarm clock so I could just go straight back to sleep when a familiar voice said, “Good morning, Nyle. I hope you slept well.”
Startled by the voice, I fell out of bed in a tangle of my bed sheets and blankets. Looking up, I saw Chuck standing there with his arms folded in front of his chest. With his sunglasses over his eyes, it was a little hard to read his expression, but I could tell he was rather amused by my current predicament.
Untangling myself from my blankets, I said, “Morning, Chuck. You sound cheery.”
“That’s because I just had my first sip of coffee,” said Chuck. He held up his hand and a cheap coffee cup with the words ‘WORLD’S GREATEST DAD’ appeared on the side. “Dark as midnight. Exactly how I like it.”
“Can I have some?” I asked as I finished untangling myself from my blankets. I stood up and then sat back down on my bed with a yawn. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Nightmares, right?” said Chuck with a sip of his stea
ming hot coffee.
“How did you know I have nightmares?” I asked. I rubbed my forehead. “How am I dreaming at all? I haven’t heard about players dreaming in this game. I didn’t know it was possible.”
“That’s because players normally don’t dream,” said Chuck casually. “When normal players sleep in-game, they typically don’t even feel it. It will simply skip from night to morning or whatever time they go to sleep and wake up at. From what the game developers explained to me, ‘sleep’ in this game is an illusion, mostly designed to aid in its realism. Technically, you can get the same benefits from sleeping from other sources, but they decided this was the best and most natural way for players to receive those benefits.”
I nodded. “You remind me a lot of Funky right now. Sounds like something he would say.”
Chuck shrugged. “Just a coincidence, I’m sure.”
I nodded again, although now I was thinking about Funky. The last time I had seen Funky, he had logged off after the Blackout in order to deal with some urgent business in the real world. My Friends List showed that he hadn’t logged back on at all since then. I sometimes worried about whether something had happened to him in the real world that might be keeping him from logging back on. Or maybe he had gotten so traumatized from the Blackout that he didn’t want to play this game again. Then again, if Funky was one of Capes Online’s developers, as I suspected he was, then he was probably working overtime to make sure the game didn’t get shut down.
“Due to your status as a Project Second Life participant, however, you can still dream,” said Chuck. He tapped the side of his head. “Remember, your whole mind was uploaded to Capes Online, whereas other players simply log into the game like any other game. That includes the ability to dream.”
“I see,” I said. “I guess that shows Project Second Life is basically working as intended, huh?”
“It is definitely a sign that the mind-to-upload process has improved,” said Chuck. “The first few people we uploaded to Capes Online lacked the ability to dream and—”
Chuck suddenly stopped talking. He gave off the air that he was about to delve into a subject he lacked the authority to discuss. He even glanced to the left and to the right real quick, like he was worried someone might be eavesdropping on us.
“What were you saying, Chuck?” I asked. “You were saying something about the other Project Second Life participants.”
Chuck shook his head and quickly regained his normal calm expression. “It is nothing, at least nothing you need to worry about.”
I frowned. Chuck had clearly been about to tell me something about the other Project Second Life participants, but apparently, it was too sensitive a subject to discuss even with me. It was another reminder that Chuck, for all his friendliness, was still bound by the rules of the Department of VR, meaning there were undoubtedly certain topics even he wasn’t allowed to disclose to me.
“Regardless, I didn’t come here to discuss dreams,” said Chuck. “I came here to update you on the Z-Virus situation, plus the current status of Project Second Life in the real world.”
Those words caught my interest, but the two subjects were both so interesting to me that I wasn’t sure which one to ask about first.
Luckily, Chuck chose for me and said, “Let’s start with the Z-Virus situation because it is most pertinent to you currently. How has Kids Mode been?”
“Bad, but not as bad as I thought,” I said. “I ran into a lizard person whose every third word was a censored swear word. It was … weird.”
Chuck smirked slightly when I said that. “Yes, I have been informed by other players that Kids Mode can be a very different experience if you are used to playing the full uncensored adult version of Capes Online. Nonetheless, it seems to have done a good job at slowing down your rate of Infection. You are only at nine percent Infection. Had we not applied Kids Mode to you, you would probably be at twenty-five percent Infection right now, at which point you would basically be screwed.”
I felt my skin again. “Whoa. I didn’t realize Kids Mode was that effective. Makes me feel a bit better about it.”
“Yes, but it is still no cure so I wouldn’t get too comfortable with it if I were you,” said Chuck. “Still, this is good to know. It means Kids Mode still works on this particular strain of the Z-Virus. I will have to make sure that this mode is applied to other Infected players.”
I paused. “Wait, are you saying that the Z-Virus is spreading?”
Chuck grimaced. “Yes, I was just about to get to that. Capes Online Support has received reports from other players—all outside the Project Second Life program, by the way—informing us about this odd virus their characters have contracted. There have also been additional reports from non-Infected players about battling zombified Civilians in the streets. Right now, no one seems to recognize the Z-Virus for what it is, but with the number of Infected growing by the hour, it is only a matter of time before they do.”
“And if they do, what will happen then?” I said.
“Mass panic at best,” said Chuck. “At worst, it might be the last straw for most of the players who didn’t log off after the Blackout. There’s a high chance that the spread of the Z-Virus could cripple Capes Online itself it a cure is not developed in time. Everyone is already on edge after the Blackout. This could be the final straw.”
I gulped. “And if that happened, then would Capes Online be shut down entirely?”
“Perhaps,” said Chuck. He sipped his coffee again, but he did not seem to be enjoying it very much. “That is why the Capes Online developers are hard at work on developing a cure. That is also why my Department is desperately trying to find and capture Atmosfear.”
“You should,” I said. “Atmosfear is most definitely behind the spread of the Z-Virus. He and his Sidekick Giggles killed me and Cy in a warehouse where the Stalking Shadows kept tons of Z-Virus bottles. We managed to destroy their supply of Z-Virus, but we think they might be producing it in a factory somewhere.”
“A factory?” Chuck repeated. “How could they be producing the Z-Virus in a factory? I know the original Z-Virus was designed by a Mad Scientist, but he never successfully mass-produced it, certainly not on the scale we are talking about. And I would think that any such activity like the mass production of a deadly virus would have been noticed and stopped a long time ago by the developers.”
“You would think so, but there are a lot of things that just aren’t so,” I said. “Maybe whatever method Atmosfear used to disable your tracking systems he’s also using to hide the factory.”
Chuck paused, his cup halfway between his mouth and his hand. “You know, that might be true. It would explain where the Z-Virus needles are coming from and how they are being produced in such large quantities.”
I nodded. “And I think that the Ninja Guild has found the factory. It’s right here on my map.”
I opened my map and pointed at the glowing dot labeled ‘STALKING SHADOW HQ’ on my map. “The Ninja Guild’s spies have informed us of a factory in South Adventure City. The public story is that it’s a needle factory, but there’s evidence the Stalking Shadows are using the factory to mass-produce the weaker strain of the Z-Virus that they’ve been selling to unsuspecting players and NPCs alike.”
Chuck leaned in more closely, being careful not to spill his drink. “Hmm. That does sound suspicious. If this is the source of the Z-Virus, then it is in our best interests to make sure that it is destroyed.”
“That’s exactly why we’re heading there tonight,” I said. “Most of the Ninja Guild, Cy, and I are going to head out there and destroy the factory. We suspect Master Haru is hanging out there, too, so we can kill two birds with one stone if we can pull this plan off.”
“Yes, I agree,” said Chuck. “That would be killing two birds with one stone … if you were going to go there, that is.”
I stared at Chuck in confusion. “Wait, what do you mean?”
Chuck stood back to his full height. �
��I appreciate you sharing this information with me, Nyle, but given the importance of his mission, I am afraid that I must ask you to stay here.”
“Stay here …?” I said. “In my Base?”
Chuck nodded and sipped his coffee again. “Precisely. You must stay here, where it is safe until we have dealt with the Stalking Shadows and the Z-Virus factory ourselves. I hope you will understand this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“No way,” I said. I rose from my bed, my fatigue and lack of sleep forgotten as I looked directly into Chuck’s eyes. “I can’t stay here. This is my mission, the one I’ve been working on for the past few days. If I don’t go there and help the Ninja Guild kill Master Haru, I will fail the mission and not get any rewards.”
“I understand how important completing missions is for you, but trust me, this is for the best,” said Chuck. “I have already gotten heat from Director Johnson for allowing you to roam freely through Capes Online despite your current status as a Z-Virus carrier. I am not sure he would want you in the middle of a highly sensitive operation like this one, where the decisions made there could potentially impact not just the game, but Project Second Life itself.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “You said you have some updates on Project Second Life.”
“Yes, I did,” Chuck agreed. “There is still much uncertainty about the Project, but Director Johnson has successfully managed to convince President Nelson to keep it going. That’s the good news.”
“Good news,” I repeated. “Does that mean there is bad news?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Chuck. He sipped his coffee again, but somewhat nervously this time. “Project Second Life is only going to remain active and online if we keep a strict leash on participants in the program such as yourself.”
“Is that why you are keeping me here?” I said, gesturing at my Base. “Because President Nelson will shut it down if you don’t?”
“Please understand,” said Chuck, speaking more quickly than usual, though not as quickly as my temper rose. “If you went to this factory and failed to destroy it, there could be untold consequences that would affect not just Capes Online, but Project Second Life itself. I believe that if someone else deals with it, then perhaps we can ensure the continuation of both Capes Online and Project Second Life, especially if we’re able to capture Atmosfear.”