“So we have a potential problem within the system. More specifically, within the Nexus itself,” she said as everyone else began to read.
* * *
Later that night, she stood in front of her window, overlooking the lake and beyond. In the distance she could see the evening’s pyrotechnics exploding high above in the dark sky, accompanied by music and cheering. She sighed as another set of fireworks exploded brilliantly, filling the night sky with gold and red magnesium as they burned brightly.
She felt more relaxed than she had in a long time, her mind at peace for a change. It has to be the Disney environment, she figured. The change of pace from school also helped her relax, in spite of the job she was there to complete. She’d felt it all slip into place, which soothed her soul. It was oddly familiar and comforting. She hadn’t been this relaxed since before she moved to Germany almost eighteen months before.
She had a good and relaxing evening at the Magic Kingdom, going to the park after the dinner with her teams. True to her word, she’d ridden Splash Mountain not once but twice. She also went on a variety of other rides, including the ancient and yet still fun Space Mountain, and she was able to forget her usual tension.
She knew why she was usually a nervous wreck. The counselor had actually said she suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which she vehemently denied. PTSD was for soldiers who had seen war and survived, she’d argued. She knew better now, but it still set her on edge at random times. She never knew precisely what would trigger an attack, but she did her best to power through. No one would ever call her a victim again.
She shook off the images of Crisis and scowled, her peaceful reverie shattered by the sickening image of Gavrie’s inhumanly perfect face hovering above her. She wanted to throat-punch him and then cut his balls off. She closed her eyes, sighed, and turned away from the window. Her previous good mood was destroyed by the images. Just what I needed, she thought as she moved to the large, king-sized bed and plopped down onto it. More reason to not want to sleep.
“I’ve got to decide who goes where,” she murmured as she stared out across the room, her fingertips dancing unconsciously on her knee in a repetitive pattern. “I know who I want on the first team, but who gets to work with whom on the other three? Hmmm...”
Her phone chirped suddenly, breaking her concentration. Tori closed her eyes and swore silently. The last, possible thing she wanted to deal with that evening was an irate CEO. The phone chirped again, and she sighed. She reached across the bed to grab her cell phone, which rested on the nightstand.
“Hello?” she answered. She suddenly sat up in the bed as the voice on the other end began to speak.
“Hello yourself, beautiful girl,” a familiar voice teased her. She knew who it was immediately, and she blushed. How does he do that to me? She asked herself for the millionth time as a goofy smile plastered itself upon her face. He continued, “How’s Disney World?”
“How’d you hear about that?” she asked, surprised. Dylan chuckled.
“I called your dad to ask about you potentially going to Utah with me for some skiing, and he told me about your little side trip to Orlando,” Dylan explained. “I was a bit miffed at being forgotten, since I love the great mouse trap, but I figured it was for a good reason. So…reason?”
“I can’t…really say,” she paused as her mind raced. She’d signed legal documents about this before she’d left Norfolk, which meant she couldn’t tell anybody anything. “But I’m glad you called. Really.”
“I understand,” Dylan said, his voice soothing her mind as always. “You miss out on your daily Dylan, and it’s like a drug withdrawal? Am I right?”
“Well...” she let the word drag out for a few seconds before laughing softly at his sputtering on the other end. “No, it’s more because I was having visions I don’t want to have anymore. Every time I begin to think I’m getting over it, I see his face. I’ve seen horrible things before, you know? Games like Crisis seem absolutely real. C’mon, I’ve seen gutted corpses all the time in the game.”
“But that was the first time something like that happened to you, with you helpless and unable to prevent it,” he guessed correctly, his voice no longer playful. In fact, she noticed, it was very concerned. She then realized this was the first time she had actually talked to him about what had happened. “Do you feel guilty about it? Like it’s your fault?”
“Yes?” she answered, uncertain. “No? I don’t know, Dylan. It’s so confusing. Mostly, I’m just angry. Angry at him for hurting me. Angry at myself for trusting him. I knew better, and yet I fell right into his trap. I could’ve killed him right there in the game, but I didn’t. I failed, and he made me pay.”
“One hundred percent honesty time, Tori,” he said in a calm voice. “You trust me completely, right?”
“Yes.” She did, with certainty. There was no doubt there.
“Then I’ll tell you it’s not your fault in any way, shape, or form,” he said. “Babe, you were raped by someone you trusted. It doesn’t matter if it was in a videogame or not. He used it to control you, and you blame yourself.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose. She was surprised to find herself crying.
“But you know what else?” he continued.
“What?”
“You’re a legitimate badass who nuked a freaking city!” He chuckled gently. She smiled and laughed despite her tears, her dark mood eased. “A city. I mean, you spliced a code on the fly, stole the power of another gamer, and turned it against him. If that’s not total badassdom, then I don’t know what else is.”
“Dylan.” She paused, uncertain. “Would…you like to come down to Orlando and see me?”
“Hold on, let me check my schedule.” His voice trailed off for a moment, and she felt a panic begin to form in her stomach. “Yep, I’m clear for as long as you need me. When do you want me there?”
“Tomorrow,” she said as she rolled onto her side and cradled the phone against her face. “I would love for you to be here tomorrow.”
“I don’t have any classes tomorrow, and then it’s the weekend, so sure,” he told her. “I’ll be on a flight first thing in the morning. Rent a car, and then we’ll go out and see the luxurious sites of the swampy environment of Orlando.”
“Or just wander around Epcot and talk,” she suggested.
“That sounds amazing as well,” he said.
“Thanks for being an awesome boyfriend.”
“Thanks for letting me be your boyfriend.”
“So I’ll see you tomorrow? Promise?” she asked.
“Promise.”
“Okay.”
“Tori?”
“Hmm?”
“Get some rest.”
“I will.”
“I love you. Night.” The phone went dead.
Tori stared at the cell phone, shocked. That was the first time either of them had said the “L” word, and, for some odd reason, she’d thought she’d have been the first to say it. She cradled the phone to her chest and closed her eyes, mind awhirl. No scenario she had ever played in her head had him saying it first. That just wasn’t how things were done.
As she fell asleep, she realized she was both confused and ecstatic.
* * *
“She’s on it,” Leo sighed as he leaned back in his leather chair, his feet up on the thousand-dollar desk he’d imported from China the year before. He and Vilim had returned to Chicago hours after meeting with Nick the previous day, and both men’s tempers were beginning to fray as the stress of the situation mounted with each passing hour. Leo in particular wasn’t pleased with the latest series of developments, which were both related and yet unrelated to the issue at hand. “My source says she sounds confident, but there’s a little bit of doubt from some members of her team.”
“Hard to listen to someone that young, no matter how smart they are,” Vilim replied with a curt nod. “I understand. I went through it.”
“She’s more than cap
able of succeeding,” Leo said as he stood up and looked out the massive window of his 51st floor office. He watched as a parade of boats exited the harbor and began to move out onto Lake Michigan. He knew soon they’d all be out in the middle of the lake, with the impressive skyline of Chicago in the distance, enjoying themselves and their families as the sun set far off in the west. It was something he sometimes wished he could afford the time to do.
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Leo continued as he stared into the distance. “How can the Nexus continue to work when it has no power? We shut down the servers so there shouldn’t be anything holding it up, yet there it is. It’s almost like it has a life of its own.”
“Kristin Lee down in R&D had a theory, but it’s one of those off-the-wall theories you hate,” Vilim said and tapped his knee. Leo half-turned and motioned for his subordinate to continue. “Well, she mentioned something about quantum entanglement, and how it both exists and doesn’t, like Schrödinger’s cat.”
“Ugh,” Leo muttered under his breath. Vilim ignored him.
“It has to draw power from somewhere, she says,” the Argentinian said as he quit tapping his knee, his eyes distant as he spoke. “She also said it could be some sort of quantum spacing that’s forcing the Nexus to stay up and running. She said, theoretically, it could be self-powering due to a feedback loop.”
“Ugggggh,” Leo groaned louder. “Physics. I got into this business to entertain and make money, not to learn rocket science. Bring it down to my level.”
“Sorry, boss,” Vilim shrugged. “I think it’s crap, to tell the truth. The way she explains it reminds me of plugging two extension cords into one another on both ends and magically having electricity. It just doesn’t work that way.”
“Well, why is that theory crap?” Leo asked, perplexed. He held up a hand to forestall Vilim’s disagreement. “For the sake of argument, let’s try and run with this idea. You have something humanity barely has a handle on in quantum entanglement. We know because the Nexus is still up and running despite all efforts to shut it down. We also know it works better than expected, as it’s secure on a level we weren’t certain anybody would hit this soon. What about…hey, wait a second. Remember that guy from the conference at COMPUTEX Taipei last year? He had something called a ‘quantum net’? We invested in it, and now it’s down in Tennessee?”
“That Scottish guy?”
“No, that was the guy who argued against it afterward,” Leo snapped his fingers suddenly. “Ha! Laszlo Zalan, that guy from Montenegro. Hacker or something who turned legit. Allegedly.”
“Makes for an intriguing backstory for investors,” Vilim mused as he tapped his chin thoughtfully. He picked up his tablet and began to surf through the files he stored within The Warp for safekeeping. “Quantum networking. You do own a small percentage of his company, and they had some record profits last year. A very good investment. They’re now global and looking to expand the internet to every major city. Rathe—”
“Rathe!” Leo said, excited. “Yeah, Rathe Solutions. Bring ‘em in as…consultants? Or just see if we can get that Laszlo guy in here for some thoughts on this? Treat him well, pay him better. If his quantum net thing is as good as we’ve seen so far, then we’ll be using it whenever Warp 3.0 gets released into the wild.”
“On it,” Vilim said as he stood. “What about the Orlando people?”
“Two fronts,” Leo said as he pulled out his cell phone. “Inside and out. It’s worked very well in the past. Why mess with success?”
“Got it, boss.”
“Hey, Vilim?” Leo paused and looked up from his cell at his subordinate. “Laszlo…Offer to fly him in on my G9 jet. That usually impresses people.”
“I think he has one of his own, boss,” Vilim stated. “Rathe isn’t small-time anymore. They’re starting to get noticed by the big boys. I hear Sandberg’s putting together an offer for outright ownership.”
“She won’t get it,” Leo predicted. “I remember when Jeff Williams put in an offer for outright control and got shot down in ten minutes. So far we’ve been lucky to even get a slice of that pie.”
“Luck?” Vilim chuckled. “If I’m reading this correctly, Laszlo accepted our low-ball offer. Guy loves WarpSoft apparently. Want me to see about bringing him in tonight?”
“Hmm…naw, now’s not the time,” Leo said, shaking off the thought. “Let’s set this up for tomorrow if he’s free. If not, as soon as possible. We don’t want to sound desperate, merely eager.”
“I’m on it,” Vilim said as he exited the office.
Leo found who he was looking for in his contacts. He dialed and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Rodney? Leo,” he began, his gaze drifting back across Lake Michigan. “So Tori’s made some progress so far but I need to pick your brain about a few things…”
* * * * *
Chapter 5
Tori absolutely hated to talk about her feelings with most people.
Before the move to Germany, she’d seen a psychiatrist briefly when she’d started talking about her feelings at school. She’d admitted she felt lonely sometimes because her dad worked a lot, and since her mom had died when she was little, it was just her and her father. The private school, overzealous in their approach, had decided she needed to go see a psychiatrist.
It was there she’d learned to appreciate the bond she and her father had, as well as the utter lunacy of a well-intentioned but uninformed psychiatrist. While she’d insisted she didn’t need to see a psychiatrist, the woman had insisted she was hiding her true feelings and masking her pain. It’d been a war of words, back and forth, until her father had stormed into the school building and ended it right then and there.
That should’ve been the end of it, but the psychiatrist, miffed, had threatened to call the police and report her dad for neglect and child endangerment.
She’d seen her father angry exactly three times in her life. When her father was warned against taking her out of therapy by the psychiatrist was the first time. She knew, as well as any young girl could know, fathers were protective of their daughters. All girls knew their daddies would always protect them. For the father who had raised a daughter alone, that protectiveness was easily doubled.
That day, however, her father had been furious. It’d taken many pleadings from the school to avoid the lawsuit he almost dropped on their heads. She’d been terrified at the time, but not because of her dad. She’d been afraid she’d caused the issue. It was only later, when she was older and her father had been able to explain things in more detail, that she learned it’d been in no way her fault.
After what had happened to her and all the others during the Crisis incident, she’d started blaming herself for things that were obviously out of her control again. Her psychiatrist was helping but it was slow going. Part of it had to do with giving up control. She’d done that in the past and been hurt by it, twice.
She’d never fully trust the neural interface device again, even if the machine hadn’t had anything to do with what happened to her. It was still in control when she was in The Warp. She sighed and slipped the device onto her head. Flipping the power on, she waited for the connection to be made.
Do you wish to login? The computer asked on the blue screen.
“Yes,” she replied. The blue screen disappeared, and immediately she was thrown into the Nexus, the central directory hub for all the worlds within The Warp. It was new and still only open to alpha testers, and those who had come along with her to investigate why it was still up and running. However, the system was supposed to allow someone to go from world to world within The Warp using only the Nexus, without being forced to disconnect entirely before hopping over. Which came in handy and saved time, she admitted, as she looked around at the various worlds laid before her on the “big board of doom, death, and despair,” or more commonly known as “The Board.”
This was where, before the Nexus, Moderators had tracked gamers
and watched for bounties whenever an en finite appeared. Though it didn’t give them exact locations, it’d at least tell them when one of the elite gamers nearing the completion of a game was online. Moderators would then be forced to guess the realm the en finite would be in. In theory, it was difficult. In practice, however, most Moderators simply trolled the message boards to find out what gamer was in which world. From there, it was simply a matter of finding out how far along they were and what missions were needed next.
A lot of work for such meager pay, she knew, but there was a reward unto itself when it came to bragging rights.
Tori took a deep, calming breath. She knew what was next. Uncertainty and fear threatened to overwhelm her, but she pushed it back. She shoved everything aside and focused on the smiling faces of her family and friends. I am brave, she told herself. I am brave.
“Full immersion,” she ordered and immediately her inner ear spun. This made her stomach rebel slightly as her sense of balance left. The sensation passed as quickly as it came, but it still bothered her. It was the one major flaw in an otherwise near-perfect system. She shrugged her shoulders and realized she was fully immersed already when her avatar shrugged with her. “I guess the new wireless NIDs are as good as the old ones.”
The Nexus became her full-fledged reality, and she felt the light from the Nexus warm her skin. The blue light from the area was disconcerting for new gamers, but they’d eventually look at it as a welcome beacon, she figured. It was much better than crawling through the slimy jungles of Kadashter while hoping against hope a leech didn’t crawl into her underwear. Digital realm or not, some things were just too disgusting to deal with reasonably.
Her personal display board came up before her, which showed her statistics for all the battles she’d ever fought and all the missions she’d completed. She glanced at it but didn’t really pay any attention to it. She’d been out of the game for too long for anything to be impressive. She did note, however, there was a massive gold star next to her name. She reached out and the star enlarged. She blinked as she realized it was an achievement medal. They’re really proud of me defeating their game, she thought.
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