Anomaly (Somnia Online Book 2)

by K. T. Hanna

  All she had to do was make it to Future Murmur and make sure they were raid ready when they needed to be.

  Snowy wuffed out something that sounded like a laugh, and she raised an eyebrow at him. “Enough from you, wolf.”

  “Oh!” she said as they set out past the gate. “You’ll never guess who I ran into while you were gone.”

  “The tooth fairy?” Merlin guessed as he scouted past her and led the way.

  Murmur laughed as the early morning sunlight glistened down on the freshly fallen snow giving it a cheery and yet blindingly white appearance. “No, I ran into Exodus, met their defacto guild leader officially, chatted to Masha—you all remember Masha, I’m sure. And of course Jirald. Who actually apologized.”

  “What’s his angle?” Beastial grunted out without any of his usual humor lacing the words.

  Murmur shrugged. “You know, he still made me uneasy, so I took the apology with a grain of salt. But he seems to be on probation now, and on good behavior. He might really mean it, but there was still something very off about him.” Even listening to herself, she didn’t believe the words. If she couldn’t convince her own brain, how could she convince others?

  Then again, did she want to convince others. Not even Snowy had liked him. And if a pupper didn’t like a person, there was always a reason.

  “I don’t trust that little shit. He literally tried to backstab you, Mur.” Rashlyn’s voice took on a deeper timbre, the anger highly obvious. “We’re not forgiving him of anything. You can, but you better not let your guard down. I know we won’t.”

  “Like I actually forgave him, Rash. I was alone. I was scared shitless.” Mur hadn’t meant to raise her voice, and it took her a few moments to gather herself.

  Sinister hugged her tightly, lending a bit of grounding that the wolf couldn’t give her, a touch of reality. “It’s okay, Mur. We just worry about you.”

  Murmur took in a deep breath. “Sorry. But all I had with me was Snowy. Even with my stun at the ready, what if he’d tried to pull that shit again?”

  She didn’t want to continue the thought, because doing so meant accepting that maybe she wouldn’t be here. It meant admitting that there was a crazy douchebag stalker with a weird vendetta against her who wasn’t aware that killing her in-game might take her life.

  What really scared her was that even if he knew her predicament, she was pretty sure it would make no difference at all to him.

  Storm Entertainment

  Somnia Online Division

  Game Development Offices—Conference Room Two

  Day Nine Post Launch

  Shayla didn’t feel like sitting in the office. Far too much adrenaline coursed through her veins. Wren’s state was so surreal, so off-putting that she couldn’t wrap her head around it. The girl’s hands were warm and her eyes flickered under her eyelids, but she was for all intents and purposes, in a coma. And Michael’s headset had done that. One he tweaked himself. Or at least it had assisted in achieving Wren’s current predicament. What had he been aiming for?

  Even worse, what the hell was Teddy Davenport doing with this research grant? Where were they sending this information, and what was its purpose? How had they wrangled all the privacy issues in a legal manner? Because whatever it was had landed Wren in a coma, where the only way for her to use her mind was in a freaking virtual world.

  The door opened and Shayla turned around, not bothering to be fast about it. She’d pretty much had it with everything so far. If helping Wren didn’t hinge on still having this job, she would have quit that morning.

  “Shayla.” Teddy Davenport inclined his head, his eyes alert.

  She uncrossed her arms. There wasn’t any reason for her to be completely hostile. The odds that Teddy knew exactly what was in Michael’s brain were very slim. But the more she dug, the more she found out, the more she realized he’d been obsessive about the whole process. In fact, his personal hypothesis and theories, all of his off-company-time research, seemed to indicate a slightly mad scientist vibe. She couldn’t even bring herself to tell Laria yet, but at some stage she was going to have to. It was probably partially the key to why her daughter wasn’t waking up.

  “Mr. Davenport.” She almost called him Teddy and was glad to dodge that bullet. Office nicknames rarely went down well when spoken face to face. “I have a few questions.”

  The tall man raised an eyebrow at her, and took a seat, leaning back in it and steepling his fingers; his habitual pose. “Fire away.”

  He’d come without an entourage today. The gesture made her frown, because he was usually a very cautious man. Perhaps they’d had a disagreement as far as disclosures or something. Was he taking a risk by talking to her, or did he not value that her questions might be problematic? Or could they hear her through an earpiece or something?

  “Michael Jeffries designed the original headgear, and we know we accessed a grant because of this, but here in the game where all of his hardware has been implemented, we have no idea what we’re researching apart from vague parameters and adjustments.” She paused, looking Teddy dead in the eyes. Supposition was great and all, but an actual answer would help. “What exactly are we researching the effect of the brainwaves and headgear for, Mr Davenport?”

  He paused for a few moments, eyeing her with thoughtfulness. A huge sigh rippled through him and he leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “You and Laria have been with me since you were interns. You are the reason we have an entertainment division at all. You’ve managed well for yourselves, and finally Somnia was meant to be your big break. And it is.”

  He leaned back again, his brows furrowed. “The game is succeeding beyond even my wildest imaginings. As for the headset—Michael developed this headset specifically for our military contracting division.”

  Shayla tried to reduce the intensity of her glare. She’d known it was tied to the military; it had been rumored and murmured about. But she’d really hoped it wasn’t to weaponize anything. If it was developed for the military contracting division, that meant the purpose behind it had never been for the game. She waited for him to continue.

  “The headgear he originally submitted was marvelous. A true stroke of genius, even if he always thought he was one anyway. It could map the brain and make predictions on the person’s personality and type of behavior, their actions and even some of their memories.” He was watching her closely, probably trying to gauge her reaction.

  “Even their memories? Like it could read minds?” The concept was difficult to grasp.

  “We needed a huge testing base, and Somnia had just started production, so I enlisted his help to make a headset that the entire world could use. What better avenue to pull from than millions of players being sorted into their applicable characters based on who they actually are, and not who they pretend to be?” Teddy smiled, his gaze distant for a moment. “Anyway. We had our trials, and they worked marvelously while Michael was still here to make adjustments. The results leapt forward constantly, refining better ways to interpret and receive more accurate results. At least until he somehow fell victim to whatever it was that happened to him. Still trying to muddle through that one.”

  “So we’re sending them information on how accurate the headgear is for what purpose?” She prodded him, because while amazing, it still didn’t exactly make sense.

  Teddy shrugged, and he refused to meet her gaze. “That’s just it. Mapping the brain. Being able to determine where someone’s true aptitude lies and make the most of it in training or in the field. That is the goal of the headgear, but I fear we’ve run into a snafu.”

  Shayla moved to half sit on the table, her arms crossed again as she stared at him. “Explain?”

  “It would appear that Michael didn’t put all of his resources into the headgear like we initially assumed. When using other interfaces we don’t achieve the same or even similar results as the
data we’ve been receiving, despite using the same headgear.” He shrugged again, but this time it was less of an I don’t know and more of an expression of discomfort. “We think it has something to do with the system in the game and how it causes the headgear to interact with the people. So we’re going to need to borrow an engineer or two from you in order to determine just what that interaction is.”

  “Interaction?” Shayla had her own suspicions but wasn’t about to share them with anyone else just yet. Trying to delay, to buy time so she could hash things out in her head, she asked a question. “You mean how the game extrapolates the data and seeks to allocate classes or something like that?”

  He nodded, emphatically even. “Exactly. The environment has been tailored to take advantage of the headgear’s capabilities. We think that some of the parameters set into the game cause the headgear to act in a different way than we’ve been able to simulate for military training purposes.”

  Good, they hadn’t figured out that it was probably the AIs who were actually the driving force then. “It could be. What do you need from me?”

  “Just access to one of your engineers or two, so we can see if it’s possible to adapt the training programs to read more like the game programs do for allocating classes.” He smiled, even if there was a brief hesitation.

  Shayla nodded. “I’ll send Silke, and have her pick someone else too.”

  Teddy rose and shook Shayla’s hand. “Thanks. Sorry for keeping you all in the dark, but hush-hush, you know?”

  She watched him leave the room, frowning in his wake. If they figured out the differential was the AIs, Somnia wouldn’t exist anymore. They’d confiscate those AIs as fast as they could. And right now, not only because of Wren, she’d do almost anything to prevent that.

  “I cannot wait until we finally get to ride horses.” Devlish grumbled, stomping his feet to loosen the build up of snow.

  “You and me both. We’re so damned close.” Havoc glanced at his specter with a frown. “I mean, my pet doesn’t even fucking touch the snow.”

  Murmur glanced at Snowy, who was frolicking through the plush snow with abandon. She grinned. “Mine loves it.”

  Her wolf glanced at her with a roll of his eyes, an expression she’d not even known wolves could do. Murmur laughed.

  “Not to mention I don’t know how the horses will handle some of the terrain. You realize going up rocky, snowy inclines isn’t exactly what horses were made for, right? With some of the hyperrealism in this game.” Merlin’s tone sounded thoughtful, and the rest of the group groaned. Trust him to be pragmatic.

  “So this is it, huh?” Sinister was shading her eyes against the dawning sun and looking up at the huge castle about half a mile in front of them. A bridge spanned a ravine with guards on the guild’s side of it, and obvious roaming monsters on the other. There was so much clearing to do before they could even reach the castle.

  It stood there like it was made out of snow bricks, shining white in the sun, sparkling with the cold. Murmur shivered slightly and Snowy pressed himself against her legs. “Let’s hope this isn’t a repeat of Hazenthorne.”

  Rashlyn chuckled and came up to Mur, rubbing her arms for her to try and lend some warmth. It felt good, although Murmur couldn’t help wondering if cats were just warmer than lizards. That whole cold-blooded thing and all.

  “You still have those tonics, Mur?” Jinna asked.

  She nodded. “Keeping them for emergencies.”

  The dwarf laughed. “So you’ll never use them.”

  It wasn’t a question and the rest of the group laughed. Basically it was the truth of any game. Everyone kept so many things, just in case they needed them more at a different time. And because they kept telling themselves that, of course, they never ended up using a whole heap of stuff.

  “We’ll take the left side, as usual.” Devlish smiled at Rashlyn.

  She rolled her eyes. “I guess we’ll take the right then. Always on the right side us, you know?” And she winked as she moved over slightly getting ready to pull the bridge guard once they left the tree line.

  Murmur hopped from one foot to the other, watching as her friends buffed themselves, and as her own spells landed on them. Now she could increase their agility by twenty-four. The stronger they got, the stronger her buffs became. The stronger the guild got, the stronger Telvar became. Somehow that fact was very soothing.

  “Here we go.” Devlish stepped out past the trees and immediately the guard on the left spotted him and yelled, which alerted the guard next to him, but Rashlyn stepped out at that moment, and so his attention was diverted.

  She hadn’t been able to get a good look at the guard, but when he came closer, Murmur realized he was like an oversized dwarf. The same proportions as a dwarf but twice the size, and with extremely pale, almost grey skin.

  “Holy shit.” Havoc wore a massive grin, and his eyes shone with a fervor she’d not seen him express before. “These guys are undead. I can use my undead shit on them! I even went deeper into my class when I hybridized!”

  She didn’t think she’d ever seen him so happy or excited since logging into Somnia, and it didn’t take long to see why. As he cast spells she didn’t recall seeing the light show for before, she noticed wisps of what might be the remnants of a soul floating from the mob to Havoc. As it did, their target emitted an ear-piercing shriek of pain.

  Havoc’s grin had a cruel tinge to it, a happiness that let her know he’d been waiting eagerly to use these new spells. His happiness made Murmur grin too.

  The undead dwarf crashed to the ground with a huge thump that made it rumble beneath them. Rashlyn’s group toppled theirs at almost the exact same time.

  The bridge spanned out before them, an icy gateway to danger. Murmur smiled.

  “Time to go work out some frustrations, guys.”

  Murmur stood gasping for air on the other side of the bridge, six mobs held in a trance by her Mezmerize while Dansyn forsook some of his group-enhancing music and opted for holding down another three. It was mind-boggling how difficult it was to make those Mezs stick on mobs that were a level higher than her now. She could feel a trickle of sweat running down her back despite the cold because of the stress she was currently under. Even though these were only group mobs, there were a lot of them, and they all paid damned good attention to one another. The only way they’d be able to separate and each take a camp was to clear the initial stages of it together. And they’d only stay ahead of the respawn if they worked methodically.

  If this world respawned like all the other games she’d played, they would have been overrun by a dozen undead dwarves at once.

  The intelligence in these groups of monsters was amazing, but given her observation of Telvar’s advancements, not unexpected. Still, Murmur couldn’t wait to meet an enemy that could truly go one on one with them and their strategies.

  Taking down the group of thirteen mobs was difficult.

  Her Mez now held for thirty-six seconds, and as her casting speed had increased and she constantly used her magic resist reduction spell, it left her a few moments in which to cast her debuffs and keep an eye out for roamers. Dansyn had trouble holding down three at once, so naturally, Devlish and Rash pulled all of his first. It meant Dansyn could benefit the whole raid with other songs then; however, it also meant the undead dwarves under Murmur’s thrall became very partial to her. She couldn’t wait to use Mind Wipe, and really hoped it worked.

  Because these opponents didn’t go down easily, because it was as difficult as playing against other players, the level of accomplishment at the end of the battle was always exhilarating. Blood flew in rainbow-like arcs, spattering on the snow with an artistic edge. In some circles, had the snow been canvas, it would have sold for millions of dollars. The ground beneath them trampled some, mixing dirt and mud with the blood and wet, leaving behind a faint copper smelling mud pie
beneath their feet.

  “Taunting the next one, Mur, but he doesn’t seem to want to look at me. Maybe get a stun ready?” Dev sounded a wee bit concerned.

  She put him out of his misery. “It’s okay. I have a new trick up my sleeve.”

  Dev shrugged and broke the Mez. As he did so, Murmur accessed and activated Mind Wipe, suggesting strongly that the dwarf be angry with Devlish. The change was instantaneous. Adding the hatred it had for her onto that which Dev had been building, the undead dwarf almost appeared to be salivating for the lacerta tank.

  Murmur decided her new ability was worth any headaches it threw at her, made sure her shielding and sensor nets were cast out so they could increase her MA, and got to work readying the next ones with debuffs for the take down.

  As the last undead dwarf fell, Devlish stood, his axes dripping with blood, staining the white snow. It had spattered onto his cuirass, and down his legs, some tiny bits onto his head. He looked regal and rough, even a bit deranged as he stood there panting, breathing small white clouds into the air. All of the melee looked like that—even Snowy had a red dripping muzzle, his body lightly laced with spots of blood. Murmur wondered if his coat could be stained.

  She laughed, stifling it back to a giggle because it echoed around the cliffs they stood under.

  “You okay, Mur?” Sinister eyed her with concern, moving over, her blood red robe brushing the top of the powdery snow. Blood was everywhere today.

  “I’m okay. I’m just thinking, and we all know that’s a pretty bad idea.” She sighed, and looked over the decaying corpses, turning into a black sort of sludge as they began to evaporate. The smell tickled her nostrils almost causing her to gag as they dissipated into the air. She wondered, just for a moment, if that’s what it was like when your soul left your body, when death took you over and blew you away.

  “Yeah...” she repeated, finally somber again. “Just thinking.”

  Just thinking dark thoughts, ideas that were starting to sound appealing. After all, nothing was off limits in this world.