Fantasy Online_The Runestones of Tritinakh

by Harmon Cooper

  Finished with his bowl, one of the salarymen at the counter stands, thanks the chefs for their food, bows, and exits the restaurant, a newspaper tucked under his arm.

  “Let’s get down to business then,” Sophia says, settling her gaze on Ryuk. “I went through your feed since you took your new avatar, and I noted a couple of things.”

  “Okay,” he says nervously.

  “You recall the woman behind the door in the Shinigami’s guild.”

  “Yes, the snake woman. I think she looked like a snake, at least from here down,” Ryuk says, touching his stomach.

  “I’m just going to flat out tell you everything I know about this person. Her last known handle was ‘Veenure,’ her real name is Victoria Mays.”

  “Veenure?” Ryuk asks.

  “Wait,” she says as FeeTwix’s mouth opens to ask a question. “Let me finish, because it is about to get a lot more complicated. Veenure was, or quite possibly still is, a Reaper. Now, I know you know about the Reapers, FeeTwix, especially being a Quantum Hughes fanboy. But for Ryuk, an explanation is important.”

  “I know a little. I was a Knight, remember?”

  Sophia continues her explanation anyway. “The Reapers were the name for what was essentially a murder/slavery guild formed in the 2050s by Strata Godsick. Remember that name, because it is about to come up again. Strata formed the Reapers during the search for his son, Luther. The Reapers worked for a company known as the Revenue Corporation, of which Strata was the CEO, which exploited people who were trapped in Proxima Worlds.”

  “I’ve heard about being trapped,” FeeTwix says.

  “Being ‘trapped’ used to be a thing. The Reapers usually enslaved those who were trapped, and tried to use clever, algorithm changing weapons to trap more players, so they could extract insurance money from them. There were shell companies upon shell companies, and a public scandal happened once all this was revealed in late 2058, plus a system-wide change from the Proxima Company. Any questions so far?”

  FeeTwix and Ryuk shake their heads.

  “Now back to the serpent woman and how she relates to all this. Veenure was Strata’s daughter, Luther’s half-sister. She was actually part of the Knights of Non Compos Mentis. Now for a little background on that, the Knights were formed when Quantum and the rest of the federally funded DREAM Team, that’s Dream Recovery Extraction and Management Team, went to Tritania in search of Strata’s son, Luther.”

  “Why did they want his son?” FeeTwix asks.

  “Leverage and because we – yes, I was a DREAM Team member – were tasked with freeing people trapped in Proxima worlds. So, helping Luther would have been twofold: freeing him and also giving us leverage on Strata and the Reapers. Anyway, not long after Quantum and company spawned, they met Veenure, who tricked us all and joined our guild, getting intel from the inside.” Sophia gulps. “She later ended up killing my dive partner, Zedic Woods.”

  “She killed your partner?” Ryuk asks, seeing the troubled look on her face.

  Sophia nods slowly. “There is more to it than that, but yes, Veenure killed him in the OMIB, and he didn’t have an RPC set to respond.”

  “Orthogonal Matrix Inverse Base.”

  “Yes, FeeTwix, OMIB. Remember that word, because I’m about to get back to it.”

  The gyoza comes, and after taking her wooden chopsticks from their package, Sophia dunks the first one in soy sauce and eats it right away. “Okay, so as I was saying, Veenure, who I believe is this woman you encountered, Ryuk, is Strata’s daughter.”

  “So how did she end up in the OMIB?” FeeTwix asks, his mouth full of piping hot gyoza. “It’s sooooo good!”

  “We put her in the OMIB. Remember Doc? You met him yesterday.”

  “Yep,” says FeeTwix. “The faun.”

  Ryuk recalls the faun they met back at the Knights’ guildhall, the one in the tactical vest similar to the vest FeeTwix wears to reduce damage taken from the firearms penalty.

  “Doc is a…” Sophia bites down on her lip as she considers how to describe him. “He is the original Proxima hacker, that’s how I’d describe him. He was born in the 80s, as in 1980s, and he was one of the first to really toy with what the Proxima Company created.”

  “And he was a DREAM Team member?” asks the Swede.

  “Not exactly,” Sophia says, her mouth full. Once she swallows, she continues the information dump. “He was never an official member because that would have made him a target. Instead, he was a contractor for the DREAM Team, and in his free time, aside from spending time with his goats.” She cringes. “He had one named Sally that I wasn’t the biggest fan of. Again, a story for another day. Like I was saying, aside from spending time with his goats, Doc liked to tinker with algo weapons.”

  FeeTwix stuffs another gyoza in his mouth. “Mutant hacks.”

  “That’s right, FeeTwix, and while the one you have in your inventory list…”

  “I have two.”

  “Okay, so you know what they’re capable of. Doc created a type of mutant hack he called the ‘Golden Goosinator,’ which we also called a ‘Reaper Hack.’ The Reaper Hack was relatively straightforward at first. Blast a Reaper, and it tracks their real world location and gives them a life bar penalty when they log into any Proxima world. But it got cooler as Doc tinkered with the weapon’s effects.”

  “Did he fry their NV Visors?” FeeTwix asks.

  “Fry?” asks Ryuk.

  “Electrocute to death. You know, um, zzz, zzz, zzz!” FeeTwix flashes his hand around his head to illustrate what he means.

  “I see.”

  “No, he didn’t design hacks to kill them, although he could have, and I believe he contemplated doing so for a while.” Sophia sets her chopsticks down. “But he didn’t do it; instead, he designed a mutant hack that not only logged their location, it also force-spawned the Reaper in the OMIB, meaning they could never return to the Proxima Galaxy proper. Let me rephrase: after being struck with this weapon, they could return to any Proxima world, but they couldn’t actually function with normal players. Instead, they would automatically spawn in the OMIB, and if you’ve ever been in the OMIB...”

  Sorrow flashes across Sophia’s eyes.

  “What?” FeeTwix asks.

  “If you’ve ever been stuck in the OMIB for a considerable time, it can be quite harrowing.”

  “So how does this relate to Veenure?” the Swede asks.

  “Once we discovered she was a Reaper, there was a pretty big battle in which we blasted her with one of these hacks, I believe it was Quantum who got her.”

  “Hell yes, it was Quantum!” FeeTwix says, his mouth full of gyoza.

  “Veenure was never able to log into a Proxima world proper; rather, she could only log into the OMIB.”

  “So that’s where she is now?”

  “Correct, Ryuk, but there’s one more layer to this. Doc and Quantum, using the DREAM Team’s jurisdiction, went after Veenure in California. They planned to bring federal charges against her for killing my divemate, Zedic. But just as they were about to capture her, Veenure killed herself.”

  The color drains from FeeTwix’s face. “And she had an Reborn Player Character who force-spawned in the OMIB, essentially trapping her there for eternity.”

  “Exactly. Now, she could still use her dashboard to terminate her account, but I believe she’s been using her time in the OMIB to grow stronger and to figure out a way to come back to our world.”

  “Whoa,” FeeTwix says. “You think she’s trying to come back here?”

  Sophia takes a deep breath and looks at Ryuk. “And this is exactly what happened to your friend Tamana just before her death. You and Tamana were resetters, and just like the data Hajime showed me, these digital hallucinations are only happening to resetters, those who decide to start over with new avatars. And I believe it is Veenure causing this.”

  “Why resetters?” Ryuk asks. “Why is she trying to come through resetters?”

  Sophia’s b
row furrows as she tries to think of the best way to water down her explanation. She gives up, and goes with the more technical explanation.

  “The answer to this question involves an avatar’s digital neuronal autoconstruct system, or D-NAS. New avatars are created in real time, their D-NAS not passing through the OMIB as portions are recycled. Once someone becomes a resetter, their D-NAS is partially processed in the OMIB. No avatar is ever completely destroyed, which is why you, Ryuk, have likely noticed a few similar characteristics between your current avatar and your last Tritanian avatar.”

  Ryuk nods, recalling his Extreme Focus skill.

  “Most people only have a sliver of this past-avatar residue, but it’s there, and it passes through the OMIB, which is how Veenure has caught onto it. It’s how she found you and Tamana. She has tried with you as well, Ryuk, but continues to fail. She appears to be trying to use an NPC to come through a person’s iNet feed and take over their body. Thing is, this isn’t possible.” Sophia grins smugly. “Trust me, I know.”

  “I’ll bet,” FeeTwix says as he finishes the last gyoza.

  She takes a sip from her glass of water to clear her throat. “Let’s backtrack, just a bit, to my successful experiment from the 2050s. If you recall, I was able to have an NPC spawn inside a humandroid’s body.”

  Ryuk remembers going over this with Hajime and later sharing it with the guild.

  “As I told you, FeeTwix, Quantum Hughes did this for a time as well. He got stuck in a Proxima world and returned to our world using a humandroid’s body. So theoretically, an RPC would be able to take a humandroid’s body, but not a human’s. That’s the problem here: Veenure is trying to come through human bodies, which doesn’t work. If she tried a humandroid’s body, it could work. I proved that it was possible.

  “Veenure is an RPC. Remember, she’s dead. She killed herself in California in 2058. I’ve already proven that an NPC can r-dive, or reverse dive. Aiden did it in the 2050s, and Quantum was a regular player character, and he did it too. So, I’ve proven both NPCs and PCs can come to our world using a humandroid’s body.

  “Point is, an RPC could definitely do it, which is what Veenure should try to do if she really wants to spawn in this world. But she doesn’t know this. All she knows is that she’s been able to use NPCs to distort a person’s live iNet feed.” She offers a rare smile. “Which, in itself, is quite the discovery. Oh, the ramen has come!”

  The waitress sets the three bowls of ramen on the table and asks them to enjoy their dinner.

  “Arigato gozaimasu,” Ryuk says as she leaves.

  “What’s next?” asks FeeTwix. “I mean, what are we supposed to do about this now, as in, after dinner.”

  “That’s really up to you two,” says Sophia. “If you have things to do in Tritania, you could go back. Or you could sleep. We’ve discussed both options, we being Evan, Hajime and me. Until you’ve left Japan, FeeTwix, Hajime will also be looking after you.”

  The Swede finishes slurping up his noodles and looks to the door. “I get a bodyguard?” he asks, grinning at Hajime.

  Ryuk laughs. “He is much more than a bodyguard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.” Ryuk thinks for a moment as he takes another sip from his bowl of ramen. “We can go back to Tritania after. Do you need to run more tests?”

  “No,” Sophia says, “but it wouldn’t hurt to monitor you some more. Plus, I want to spend some time tinkering with your iNet interface, to see just how these NPCs from Tritania are coming here. I’m also interested in how they’ve augmented reality to make it appear as if they are interacting with the real world. That is one part I find incredibly interesting about all this, and it’s also a great angle for a future research project.”

  .15. Kodai Gets Lucky

  “So, they’re in Tokyo.”

  Kodai can’t believe his luck. Hours spent watching FeeTwix’s live feed hadn’t garnered much. He hated the goblin, that was for sure, and he despised the Swede’s ad reads, but finally, after a long afternoon of watching and simultaneously monitoring the Shinigami’s progress in leveling up in the Sabors, he finally got the information he needed.

  Sitting in his chair and taking in his beautiful view of Tokyo, Kodai plays the feed again just to confirm, for the sixth time, he’s heard what he thinks he’s heard:

  “FeeTwix and I need to log out to see Sophia. We’ll be back in a little while. In the meantime, the guild should make their way back to Waringtla to see Lothar, but not through the sewers.”

  How could you be so stupid, Ryuk? He thinks as he plays the clip again. He already knew they were in Waringtla, and he knew they were going after the runestones – another reason he had his team positioned in the Sabors – but he had no idea FeeTwix was in Tokyo, and Sophia...

  It didn’t take him long to deduce she was the leader of the Knights of Non Compos Mentis, and he only needed to ask one of his contacts at MercSecure, a security analyst named Ian, to do a little digging. Ian had run info for him before, and Kodai paid him handsomely to do so.

  “Sophia Wang,” he says as he feels a hand drop onto his shoulder. He looks up to see Tesla, nude, her body completely cleanshaven. The humandroid wears a small collar with a chain that trails down her back.

  “Are you ready?” she asks.

  “Something big has come up.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll catch you up rapidly.” Kodai activates an app on his iNet screen which transfers all the data he’s poured through over the last hour, plus the clip of his brother saying that FeeTwix and Sophia are in Tokyo.

  “And do you know where they are yet?” Tesla asks, her eyes dilating.

  “Ian was able to get me some information regarding her arrival, but there hasn’t been much since. I think someone, or possibly some AI, is covering her tracks. It appears as if she left from the airport in fifteen aeros taxis. All the trips were paid for by someone named War Faun, and they all have a transaction number that ends with DOC.”

  “Odd. And what does your intelligence analyst think of this?”

  “He’s checked all the taxi’s destinations and each of them have a drop off point that is either in a body of water or in a public park.”

  “And he is going through all live cam data from the parks?”

  “As of now, yes, but that’s going to be hard to filter through. We will focus instead on finding FeeTwix going forward.”

  Kodai places his hand on the small of Tesla’s back and latches onto the chain hanging from her neck. He pulls back slightly, and she lets out a small cry for help. He laughs.

  “You could kill me in a heartbeat,” he reminds her.

  “You don’t want me to play along?”

  “No, but I want to touch your skin again.”

  She sits in his lap, the second time she’s done so today. After this morning’s gruesome murder, Kodai needed his Nikko whiskey like he’s never needed it before. He’s a bit drunk now, but not drunk enough that he can’t make decisions.

  “Then touch it,” she says, turning her breasts towards him.

  He doesn’t say what’s on his mind: they feel so real.

  That would be an amateur move, but he does think it, and he does bend forward to kiss her breasts, only to find that they are warm, that if he presses his head to her chest he can hear something akin to a heartbeat, that goosebumps form around her nipples after he’s sucked on them for a moment, that the place between her legs is wet.

  It is something else.

  And even as he puts his fingers in, as he continues fondling her, as he stops and looks deep into her soulless eyes, a business idea is ballooning at the back of his mind. This is the way of the future. And his competitor, Gintoki, how smart he was for employing these droids at his pink salon!

  He gets the notion in that instant to fire a message off to Lorem Ipsum, but he resists the urge, knowing that he’s already bothered the man a great deal and that, while he pays Lorem’s company a lot of mon
ey, it’d be better for him not to be a nuisance.

  The proper channels, he thinks as Tesla turns, her back to him.

  She moves her body back and forth on his lap, across his erection.

  He hasn’t gone all the way with her yet; that’s what this evening is about. He’s saved it, took care of his business for the day, which just so happened to be murder, and spent the rest of the afternoon spying on his brother’s guilds.

  “Are you ready?” she asks, her hands dropping to his belt.

  “You can read my mind too?”

  She smiles. “No, but I can scan your vitals.”

  “You don’t need to scan much to see that I’m ready.”

  “Then let’s try it.”

  “You ever done this before?”

  She laughs. “Actually, no. No, I haven’t. I am not a humandroid built for sex work, but I have met a few. We’re actually quite similar.”

  “How’s that?” he asks as she pulls his pants down.

  “They don’t have violence governors.”

  “They don’t? Why?”

  She smiles as she places her warm hands on the seam of his boxers.

  “So that they can do whatever a person asks of them,” Kodai says, answering his own question. “It’s brilliant.”

  “It is.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I want you so bad.” He bites his lip, ashamed of how primal he’s being.

  “I’m already yours.” Tesla pulls his pants off and gets on top of him. Soon, he’s inside, and less to his surprise than he would have expected, it feels the exact same.

  Or at least, it feels the same as he remembers it. Kodai hasn’t had sex in quite a while, preferring to watch women of his choosing do vile things to himself.

  He cancels that thought now alongside the images of the things he’s asked people to do for him. What is happening now is completely alien, something that he can barely comprehend but something that seems so right, so now.

  And no, it isn’t odd for a human to have sex with a mechanical device, nor is it really odd for a human to have sex with a humandroid, especially approaching the 22nd century.