He opened his mouth, then closed it without saying a word. Walking over to his chair, he sat in silence and started typing.
A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened and Nika walked out. Her cheeks were wet from tears that she hadn't been totally successful in wiping away. If Ash ever ran into that rat bastard Blake, or whoever the hell he was, she sure as heck wouldn't leave him standing.
"You okay, Nika?" she asked quietly.
The woman nodded and gave her a shaky smile. It wasn't very convincing. "I will be," she said.
Dean and Louella were both pounding away at their keyboards. "Do you want to talk about it?" Ash asked.
"Not quite yet," she said. "I have some messages to send to my company and then, once our resident hacker gets finished with what she's doing, I have a huge favor to ask of her."
Louella didn't even respond, totally engrossed in whatever was showing on the screen in front of her. Nika sat back down and starting keying, her expression growing ever more grim by the second.
Ash tried to concentrate on the Gaia forum news, but it wasn't working. Besides, it was the same old posts, posted over and over again anyway. 'Where do I find the Elven Long Bow?' 'What's the best spell to use against Gaia?' 'What level do you need to be before you take on the orcs?'
All stuff she had responded to time and again, and already right there on the forum for anyone willing to do a ten-second search. Lazy people really bothered her. Maybe because she'd never had the chance to try it out. She worked or she didn't eat. That's just how life was. And what little free time she had was far too precious to waste waiting for answers that could be found in mere seconds.
She looked up when Nika slammed her computer shut and stood. “What’s wrong?” she asked, feeling stupid for the question. Hell, she knew exactly what was wrong.
“They’ve locked me out,” Nika replied. “My passwords, my email accounts, even my personal one that was approved by the company have been wiped from the system.” She was silent for a minute. “And you all should probably know that my marriage is ended too. He never wanted me, just Gaia.”
She sat back down and put her face in her hands. “And with me stuck in here, there isn’t anything I can do to stop him.”
“Well, that might be true if you didn’t have me,” Louella said, finally joining the party. “Sorry if I zoned out for a while. I tend to do that when I’m concentrating.” The girl looked at Nika. “I’ve got a registered Gaia email account.” She grinned shyly. “Just don’t ask me how I got it. I’m in it now, if you want to trade computers.”
Nika stared at her for a brief second before grabbing the offered computer. Her fingers started flying over the keys as Louella reached for the other machine.
“I’m not a hacker,” Ash said. “But is there anything I can do to help?”
Louella grimaced. “Sorry, but nothing I can think of right now. And I apologize ahead of time this time. I’m going to probably zone out again. If you need me, you’ll need to touch me to get my attention. My neck seems to work the best.”
Ash nodded and the girl bent back to whatever her new task was. Out in the game, Ash at least felt needed. Here she was just taking up space.
Finally, she stood, leaning over to whisper quietly in Dean’s ear. “I’m going to go explore the town and check out our new lodgings. I’ll come back in about an hour to check on you guys.”
He nodded but didn’t even look up. She could only hope her words had registered and he wasn’t quite as zoned as Louella.
She turned her computer over to the clerk in the outer room. “By the way, can you tell me where travelers stay as they pass through Riser’s Creek?”
His head inclined as he thought. “Well, there are a couple of options, depending on if you want plain or fancy. If you like plain, you and your party can rent a stall at the local stable for one gold a night. Of course, it’s gonna smell a bit like horse.”
“And if we want fancy?”
He smiled. “Yeah, when I have the gold that’s my choice too. There is a really nice hotel that rents rooms out for ten gold a night. Each room has four beds.” He paused. “I’m not sure that they’ll take that tiger of yours, though.”
That could be a problem, but one they would deal with when they had to. If the worst that happened to them was having to sleep in a horse smelling stall in the stable, she could handle it. She wasn’t so sure about Dean.
But it really wasn’t an issue. If the hotel wouldn’t take the tiger, she’d stay with him in the stable. If the horses allowed it. If not, they really could be in trouble.
Pushing that from her mind, she went to scope out the town. It was larger than the first, but still not so big that she couldn’t walk around the entire place and be back here in an hour. Hopefully, Nika would have some resolution by then.
Chapter Sixteen: Communication Station
Nika saw Ash leave the room out of the corner of her eye, but she was too intent to question her. She was quickly running out of options, even with the hacker’s email account. She sent a message out to Evan Taylor and waited. Even while on leave, she knew he would instantly get his emails and open anything from the company.
But he didn’t.
Then she sent a message out to her family’s attorney, the second most trusted person in her life. He, however, was older and tended to not check his email outside of office hours. She explained things as best she could and gave him her code word so that he would know the message was truly from her. Funny how she’d thought that was silly when he had insisted that they set one up.
Now it made perfect sense. Her message simply told him that Blake Nolan was an impostor and fraud and currently in the process of stealing the program she and her father had spent their entire lives creating. After hitting the send button, she felt a little better.
He wouldn’t delay taking action on that message. Knowing that someone in the real world had her back gave her a little peace of mind. Very little, but it did help.
She still wanted out of this game as soon as possible so she could catch the bastard before he disappeared. She had no doubt he would be tricky to find once he pulled out. Especially since she had no idea what his real name was.
Still no response from Evan, and she couldn’t think of a single other person she could trust enough to handle the problem for her. Everyone else that came to mind would be of a far lesser security level than Blake and would have a hard time proving anything. At least until her attorney got involved.
Nika glanced over at Louella, still intent on her mission, whatever that might be. She had managed to hack the program once and set up a new class for herself. Of course, that was outside the game, but now Nika wondered what exactly was possible to do from inside. Could she get to the programming from here?
Is that what she was doing? Nika stood, trying to be as quiet as possible and went to stand behind the girl’s chair, looking over her shoulder. If she was working on something personal, she would walk away.
But she wasn’t. The screen in front of her was filled with lines of code. What was it she had told Ash? To touch her neck?
She reached out and touched the back of the girl’s neck. Louella started, and then whirled around to face her, her eyes wider than Nika would have thought possible.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but are you in Gaia’s program?”
Louella’s chest was heaving, she must really have been startled by the touch. It took her a minute to get the breath to answer.
“Yes. I’m in the character class creation section.”
Nika frowned. Of all the changes the girl could make that was what she chose?
“Can you get us out of here?” She hated to be blunt, but she needed to know.
Louella shook her head. “Your dad was a little too thorough with his protective software. The only reason I can get in here is because I already did it once.” She gave Nika a sad smile. “It took me weeks by the way. But your dad compartmentalized the program. Smart
really, as it limits the damage a hacker can do if they do make their way in.”
Nika’s hopes fell. She didn’t have weeks.
“But you hacked your way into the beta test. Didn’t that require you getting into that part of the program?”
The girl blushed. “Actually, that wasn’t done with programming at all. I just added my name to the winner's list and then hid it so no one else would see it.”
“How did you manage that?” Nika had looked at that list a multitude of times and she could guarantee that the girl wasn’t on it.
“I used a white color for the font. My name was there, but invisible.”
Nika just stared at her. That was bloody brilliant.
“So there isn’t any way to get us out of here?”
“Not unless I can manage to hack into that part of the program, and that could take more than a few days. And I wouldn’t be good for anything else while I worked on it either. You’ve seen how I get around computers.”
True. And they couldn’t very well just leave her here to try to hack her way in, even though that was an option. They might very well need her out in the game. She had proved very handy to have around.
Then her curiosity finally kicked in. “So exactly what are you doing now?”
Louella grinned. “Trying to give the tiger class the ability to communicate. Talk, actually.”
Nika looked over at the feline, whose ears perked at the attention. He stood slowly and ambled over to stand beside them, looking up at the her with a questioning expression.
“Patience, Tig, patience,” Louella said, motioning to the computer. “I think I’ve almost got it.” Then she paused. “Unless maybe I should be giving you all better stats instead?”
Nika thought about it. But in the end, she shook her head. “I don’t think it would work the way we would like it to. The game is designed to match the player’s ability, so upped stats for us would mean facing upped stats on monsters too. No point to it, really.” She reached over to scratch the tiger’s head. “Besides, it would be nice to finally hear the cat’s story.” She hesitated. “How long will that take?”
The girl chewed on her lip for a second before answering, her head doing a little sideways wiggle as she thought. “Maybe another thirty minutes? But I’ll have to be zoned, sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for if it works.” Nika looked down at Dean, who had shut his computer and was just watching them. “Want to join me looking for Ash and getting our living space arranged?”
“By that you mean go with you to get out of the pixie’s hair so she won’t be distracted. Got it. And, sure, I’ll go.”
They turned in their computers and asked about the living arrangements for guests to the town. The clerk explained the two main options and the problems that their feline team member could cause with both of them.
As they left, Nika had a thought. The others would probably be up for it. If there was going to be a holdout, it would be Dean.
“Since the town’s housing is so problematic, we could always buy a tent and camp just outside the town’s limits.”
Dean didn’t completely balk like she’d thought he might. “What about the tougher, stronger night monsters?”
“Well, we’d be within a quick jog of the town’s safe zone. Plus we really wouldn’t have anything to lose if we did get rebooted. And we’re going to have to camp sooner or later in the game. This may make for a great practice run.”
He nodded. “Work out the kinks now before they really matter. Makes sense. I’m in.”
She grinned. “Then let’s go buy us some equipment.” All the things they might need started running through her mind.
“Shouldn’t we ask the others first?”
Nika shrugged. “Don’t see why. If they don’t want to camp, it isn’t like we won’t need the equipment eventually anyway, so we won’t be wasting our gold. And if they agree, we’ll be one step ahead.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
They hustled over to the market, which was only a few doors down from the station and had a bright green roof. All the markets in the game had green roofs, making them easier to find when you hit a new and unknown town.
The tent and all the equipment she thought they might need came to around thirty gold. She still had several heal and mana potions, and there wasn’t anything else there that caught her eye, so she saved the rest of her coin.
Of course, as she expected, there were also no new clothing options for Amazons.
Dean loaded up on mana potions, a few health ones, and then spent a ton of money on beef jerky. When he saw her expression, he shrugged.
“It’s lightweight so it won’t take up much room in my bag, and it might come in handy if we need to eat on the trail.”
“Not saying a word here,” Nika said. “Good thinking.”
But she didn’t want to waste gold on food when the town here should have a free-for-all buffet at each meal time too. They just needed to ask where it was.
With their packs now almost at their weight limits, they made their way back to the communication station. Ash would probably already be on her way back too.
She wanted them all together to hear the feline’s tale.
They had just stopped to ask a local about the location of the buffet when Ash joined them, coming up behind them and handing each of them an apple.
“I found the grub,” she said. “I take it Louella is still pounding away at the keyboard?”
“Yeah, but she’s on a grand mission that I think you’ll like,” Dean said, before taking a huge chunk out of the apple. “Damn these things are good. Not like the real world. So, what’s on the evening buffet?”
Trust Dean to think with his stomach. They walked as Ash filled them in on what the local pickings were. Food and otherwise.
“I checked with the stable, but they won’t let us rent horses here and the cost of a single horse is around three hundred gold.” She sounded wistful. “If I don’t need anything at the market, I’ll probably start saving my coin. A horse could come in pretty handy.”
She wasn’t wrong, Nika thought. There would come a time in the game when a horse or maybe even a camel would become a necessity. But that time wasn’t quite yet. Still, saving some coin for one in the future wasn’t a bad idea. She was pleased that her team members were starting to think ahead of the moment.
Of course, Ash hadn’t surprised her as much as Dean had with buying the food rations. They might just make it yet. As long as the rest of the creatures in the game weren’t maxed out in level like the blood elves had been.
“Saving up for a horse is actually a very good idea. We should probably all do that unless there is a new weapon that would help out more. We can always double up on horseback if need be.”
Ash nodded. “And tiger can run really fast. I’ve seen him.” She paused. “I’m not sure that the pixie’s flying ability would be able to keep up though. Still, two horses would allow all of us to move through the game pretty quickly.”
“Sometimes too quickly, though, and we could miss items that we need for quests.” Nika grimaced. “Unfortunately, as much as I want to speed through this game, if we don’t complete the quests, we aren’t going to be able to get the weapons and items we need to defeat Gaia. So getting to the end battle won’t help us if we can’t win it.”
“I’ve talked to a few of the town’s people, and I already know where two of the quests originate.” She looked Nika in the eyes. “I didn’t take them on yet, though. I remembered that we were to discuss them first.”
Nika smiled. “Trust me, it isn’t you I worry about.”
“Hey!” Dean said. “I’m doing better, aren’t I?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ash agreed. “Much, much better. I wanted to kill the old Dean. The new one I kind of like.”
“Look, I’m sorry for being such a jerk at the start of this. The two of you probably know by now that I’m not that much of a gamer. I was really just in it for th
e all-expenses paid vacation and, of course, the bragging rights to some of my gamer friends.”
His confession wasn’t much of a surprise, but it was nice that he offered it.
“I don’t know about Nika, but I don’t mind if you’re new to gaming. It might actually come in handy,” Ash said.
Nika gave her an odd look. “How so?”
The girl shrugged. “Well, he asks questions about things that don’t seem right to him. Things maybe we should be questioning but don’t because we just think they are part of the game. Not knowing how games usually work could be a benefit to us.” She grinned at Dean. “Besides, he’s pretty wicked with that double shot ability of his.”
He grinned back at her. “Likewise with that fire spell. We make a pretty good team.”
Shouts up ahead drew their attention, and they looked up to see their big white and black striped feline friend walking toward them. According to the townspeople’s reaction, it wasn’t a sight they were used to.
He walked up and took Nika’s hand gently in his mouth, his eyes imploring her to come along.
For a minute, Nika’s heart sank. If Louella had been successful, shouldn’t he just be talking to her? Or did the pixie need them?
Either way, they headed back to the station at a trot. Nothing looked out of place when they entered, and they went through into the working room to find Louella not so patiently waiting for them. Her finger was poised over a key.
“I didn’t dare leave the computer to come look for you, and I wanted us all to be here for his first words,” she said. “Is everybody ready?”
Ash looked from one of them to the other. “Okay, so what did I miss?”
Nika shook her head. “Let’s just surprise her. Go for it, Louella.”
The pixie clicked the last key, and the tiger jumped. And changed. Right before their eyes, he began turning into a man-tiger beast. Human shaped, but keeping his soft white and black fur. His claws, for the moment, seemed to be sheathed.
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