[NR] Checking In On Jenny - Chapter 452 (Patreon)

What's The Mom Doing

Jenny watched as her son, Jason, leave his room. He normally kept a relatively stable schedule, coming out for some exercise and meditation once a NeoRealm day, so five times every irl day. Sure, sometimes he would be busy or getting a full night’s sleep and so will miss one.

Over the last week or so, Jenny had noticed him missing multiple NeoRealm days in a row. Not the strangest thing, as sometimes you are better off sticking to the game. In fact, most people tend not to come out at all even when they’re on a break, instead choosing to use their personal space or hitting up one of the VR community spaces.

What really worried her was the health reports that Jason’s pod was sending her way. Of course, since Jason was an adult, she didn’t get the full run down and she couldn’t force him out of the pod, not that she would have. Still, when the pod is reporting multiple stints of not sleeping over three or more days, it does make a mother worried.

And that is doubly true for the last day. Not only was he missing sleep in NeoRealm, but his vitals were all elevated as if he was in constant terror. Jenny was mostly certain he wouldn’t have found one of the few places in NeoRealm that could actually hurt you in a way that persists irl. He would have had to have traveled many layers deep into the Wilds for that to even have a chance of showing up.

So, to see him leave his room looking fine, if a little stressed and a good bit tired, was quite the relief to Jenny. Satisfied, she turns back to the person who was trying to have a meeting with her.

The government man sighs, “Are you done? I understand you are closely related to the suspect, but we have people to monitor things.”

Jenny scoffs, “You mean you have people who try to monitor things. Don’t think I don’t know about their failed attempts on my apartment’s security. I appreciate that they even did the most basic things, like the common hardware level backdoors. Too many spooks ignore the basics and start with the self planting bugs and micro drones. Still doesn’t matter though as my apartment is up for it.”

The man flips through the papers he is holding and moves one to the front. “Speaking of which, would you mind letting them have a looksee? They’re a bit annoyed about that and while they understand what your job is, the subject isn’t in a similar line of work.”

Jenny sneers, “Even if my son isn’t working with business secrets, I am and my job would never permit me to allow such an intrusion into any place I live.”

The man nods and places the paper he had just moved onto the table next to him facedown. “Mhmm, as expected. Had to ask though, you know how things are. Anyway, on to the next bit. Just shake your head to answer so we can be quick about it. Will you sell us the apartment without informing the subject?”

Jenny shakes her head and so the man places the paper face down on top of the other. “Fair enough. Now will you pass on the subject’s pod telemetry to us? We will allow your company to go over it first and remove any proprietary information it might contain.”

Once again, Jenny shakes her head. Though as the man is putting down the paper on the other, she sighs, “How many silly questions are there to go? I know I can’t just say no to them all as there will be at least one trap where the answer I need to give will be reversed, but still, that is a thick stack of paper.”

The man rolls his eyes, “You knew this was coming.”

Jenny rolls her eyes right back at him, “Whatever, let’s get this over with.”

And they do. It takes way too long, but eventually the man finishes with the paperwork and tosses it all in a special shredder that was next to him. Quite the high-tech toy as it not only cuts the paper into hair thin threads, it then dices it up even further, leaving hair sized squares of paper. Of course, this isn’t fast as that level of precision cutting doesn’t come out of nowhere.

Though once it is done, the man turns back to Jenny. “Now that the paperwork is out of the way, does your team have anything new to report?”

Jenny nods, “The exclusion zone has stopped growing. It doesn’t quite cover the entire arcology, but it is pretty darn close. We have also seen an increase in seed viability when they are being sprouted within the area. However, the researchers believe this isn’t necessarily because of the removal of those energy types.

“Rather, after much study, they think it has more to do with the reduction in the total number of energies. One particular member even goes as far as to say that if you reversed the exclusion zone so it only allowed the energies that were being kicked out, we would see the same increase.”

The man nods as he checks the transcription. “Do you believe that?”

Jenny shakes her head, “While I do believe that a reduction antagonists energies in the seeds will lead to a greater chance of germination. You also have to look at the energy’s comparability to the seeds in the first place. It has long been known that some energies are more conducive to certain things than the others.

“The reverse has been shown to also be true. Now, I respect the scientist’s view on things, but there is a reason he has been reported as potentially being a cultist. Though the fact we even have to look out for literal cultists is a failing in its own right.”

The man sighs, “Yeah, especially when in this case it was true. I’ve got people picking him and any connected people up while we’re meeting here. Now, what is your opinion on the energies being excluded?”

Jenny shrugs, “We both are high enough that we know what kind of breaches those energies came from. The fact most of them also have the tendency to corrupt other energies should say it all. I’ll have to wait on the data, but I suspect things will have gone a statistically significant amount smoother than before.”

The man nods, “We’ll just have to wait and see. Though with that our meeting should be complete, have a nice day.”

Jenny says goodbye as well and after the two shake hands, they exit through doors which are directly behind their chairs.