Chapter Twenty (Patreon)

Six days in real life was twelve in the game. Vexxx and Tess were there for up to sixteen hours out of every two game-days, and when they were on, the group explored the maze-like dungeon, encountering several more monsters, and disabling dozens of traps. By the end of Alpha’s first week of immersion as Amy’s caretaker, they all had the [Detect Traps] skill, and they were no closer to figuring out how to escape this floor of the dungeon.

“Look,” Vexxx said, pointing to a section of the map he’d started drawing on day five. When they’d finally thought to check their in-game maps, they’d realized that they didn’t work. More accurately, they lied. Sometimes. If the group traveled fifty feet and turned left, the map might show that they turned right, doubled back, or just walked through a door that didn’t actually exist. But it also might show that they traveled fifty feet and turned left, and you never knew when it was going to be accurate, and when it was going to lie. Or at least they hadn’t until Vexxx started drawing the map.

“Our maps start going crazy when we get near these three areas.” He circled a spot in the upper left quadrant of the map, not far from where they sat, gathered in another of the convenient chambers in the brick-hall section. Stretching, because the map was rather large at this point, he tapped another spot in the ‘big head district’, as Vexxx had labeled it. He snickered every time he said it, so Alpha refused to use the name, though Tessle seemed to think it was at least a little bit funny.

Finally, he indicated a point in the ‘hard rock zone’, where Alpha had first appeared. “Whenever we get to these places, everything gets a little,” he waggled his hand, “iffy. I bet there’s another one down here somewhere.” He touched the southeast quadrant, which they’d only explored enough to realize was thickly covered in stalagmites and stalactites that broke off and tried to crush or impale anyone who walked beneath them.

Tessle shook her head. “So, what do we do about it? I mean, this area is probably the safest,” she spun a finger to indicate the zone they were in, “because there are only traps here, so we’ve explored pretty thoroughly, but the only thing different about that little area is that it makes our maps go wonky.”

Vexxx held up a finger. “Only as far as we know. What if we’re actually being, like, routed around something? What if,” he pointed to the map, “this is actually right?”

Alpha frowned. “You mean, when the map says we walked through a wall, we need to actually walk through the wall? Rather than going down the perfectly good hallway that’s right in front of us?”

Vexxx grinned broadly, the expression making him look remarkably similar to Myles for a moment. “Exactly!”

Tess looked thoughtful. “I mean, we’ve tried everything else we could think of, except for heading into the stalactite site.”

Alpha sighed. ‘Stalactite site’ was, of course, another of Vexxx’s ridiculous names. “Well, we’re already here, so we might as well give it a shot.” She glanced at the countdown timer tucked away in a corner of her interface. “But we’ll have to do it when Amy and I get back. We’ll be logging out in about five minutes.”

The others all nodded, though Vexxx looked distinctly envious. “It is sick that you guys get to use the long-term immersion pods. I’m still stuck with this lame headset and gloves.” He flicked the space near his own temple derisively, no doubt tapping the headset that served as his interface with the game.

During the first gap while Alpha and Myles waited for Tess and Vexxx to log back on, they had decided that it would be easier to just let the boy in on the ‘secret’, too. Apparently, Bree Stephenson, a famous game reviewer on social media - arguably the big-time game reviewer - had recently released a review of her experiences while she’d been immersed in Veritas for several months. While Alpha hadn’t seen it yet, it seemed that basically everyone else on the planet had, so Vexxx had immediately understood what they were talking about when they explained it.

Alpha made a face. “It’s not as great as you’d think. You feel like you’re going to die the first time you go in, and you have to have an IV and a special suit to take care of,” she motioned vaguely downwards, “biological necessities.”

The young mage waved off her words. “Whatever. It can’t be that bad. You, like, know it’s going to be fine, right? So what is there to worry about? Plus, I had my appendix out when I was ten, so I know what it’s like to get an IV, and yeah, it’s, like, gross and stuff, but it’d be worth it.”

Alpha rolled her eyes. “Tell me that after you try it.”

He sighed. “I’m never gonna get to try it. You gotta have implants, and my whole family thinks they’re gonna be hacked or some junk. Like the haxxors want whatever’s in their brains.”

Myles grinned, giving Alpha a sidelong look. “Oh, I know a few people like that. It doesn’t really work that way, though. The implants themselves can be hacked, though it’s much harder than most people imagine, but that doesn’t directly affect the person using them.”

“Uh huh,” Alpha said, crossing her arms, “unless you’re that guy from Denmark who had ads for adult diapers playing on his implants for a week.”

Myles smirked. “He deserved it.”

Alpha’s eyes rounded. “Myles? Did you-?”

He shrugged, raising his brows and smiling innocently. “Didn’t you say your time is almost up? Did you review those documents I sent you?”

The documents were, of course, the ‘reports’ Aspen had been filing for the past fourteen days. Fortunately, though someone logged on and checked with him every day, none of the players seemed to suspect he wasn’t actually Ava. Still, Aspen sent verbatim records of each conversation as part of his report, as well as noting everything he ate and everywhere he took Zombie-Amy.

Alpha nodded, though she was well aware Myles was trying to change the subject. She only had a little over a minute now, though, and she felt a tremor of nervousness as she glanced at the countdown yet again. “You’re sure this is going to work?”

He nodded, smiling reassuringly. “No worries.”

No matter how many times Myles assured her that he could hide the data flow between the regular game and Veralt’s server, she found it hard to believe. Apparently, the server that was actually hosting the player’s avatar did the bulk of the work, and after that, it was just passing that data back to the player’s pod that was the hard part. Fortunately, Veralt’s team of programmers were bored, overworked, and dissatisfied, so they were constantly downloading movies or playing games outside the server. While Amythyst hadn’t been able to use these openings to get inside, it was child’s play to use them to their advantage once she had made initial contact.

External Logout initiated.

Logout in 10

9

8…

Her head spun, her stomach felt like she’d just gone over the edge of the world’s tallest roller coaster, and when she opened her eyes again, it was to see the edge of her mask lifting away from her face, gripped in someone’s fingers. From the deep brown color of those fingers, it looked like the person helping her out of the pod was probably LeeAn, and as Ava coughed out the last of the biogel, she was grateful for the older woman’s gentle but efficient help in clearing her nose, eyes, and ears.

“Are you ready to get out, Ava?” LeeAn’s familiar voice asked, and Ava managed to nod. LeeAn slid an arm under Ava’s, and with her support, Ava managed to clamber out of the pod. Once she was sure Ava wasn’t going to fall, LeeAn slipped a pulse oximeter on Ava’s finger, and said, “Tell me your full name?”

“Um, Ava…” it took her a moment to remember her fake name, but she managed to hold ‘Gardner’ back, and say, “Shaw.”

LeeAn nodded, seeming not to have noticed the momentary hesitation. “Date of birth?”

“October thirty-first,” Ava answered, closing her eyes against the gentle spinning of the room. When Amythyst asked Ava for a date to use as Ava Shaw’s birthday, the answer had been easy. Ava’s birthday was actually in August, but she and her mother, Molly, had always celebrated October thirty-first with a cake and an exchange of gifts. It hadn’t been until Ava was eight that Molly explained that that was the day she’d received her third round of IUI, which had resulted in Ava’s birth nine months later, and they weren’t just celebrating Halloween in their own special way.

LeeAn nodded, took off the pulse oximeter, and extended Ava’s arm so she could remove the IV from the crook of her elbow and put a bandage in place. That done, she gestured to the wheelchair, which sat nearby. “Do you need help getting to the bathroom?”

Ava shook her head, immediately regretting the action. Admittedly, she’d only been in long-term immersion twice before, but she’d never had so much trouble recovering, even when she’d been yanked out less than an hour after going in. “I… No, I’m fine.” She shot LeeAn a smile, hoping she didn’t look like she wanted to throw up as much as she felt she should.

LeeAn’s brow furrowed, but she nodded. “You’re ready to go, then. We’re about to wake up Amy.” Left unsaid was the fact that the people now filtering into the room were all there to help Amy as she woke, and Ava would only be in the way. Forcing a bright smile to her face, Ava lifted a hand and made her way toward the door, though she had to lean on it a little harder than she expected on her way out.

She felt much better by the time she got out of the shower, and discovered that LeeAn had put her clothes in the same locker she’d used last time. A press of her thumb against the biometric lock, and the door whirred open, so she could take out her clothes and screen. She pulled on the comfortable pants and shirt she’d taken off a week before, and powered up her screen. It woke with a loud chiming sound that made her wince and turn it down. No messages or notifications. Not that that was surprising, since she was still inside Veralt’s lab, and thus completely isolated from every other system in the house, and the world at large.

Walking out of the bathroom, she saw that people were trickling out of the pod room, so they must have successfully extracted Amy. Quickly, before anyone noticed her, she ducked down the hall to the wide double doors that led back out to the rest of the house. Tapping her screen to the pad on the wall, she triggered the doors, and the right one swung open. She slipped out, instantly passing from a space indistinguishable from a private hospital to a hallway that looked like it belonged in a five-star hotel.

The security guard looked up and nodded to her, expression inscrutable. She had yet to see the same guard twice, which made her wonder just how large the security force was in Landon House.

As she walked away, her screen buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out. There were several messages from her fictitious ‘father’, checking in on her. The messages were actually from Amythyst, of course, but they had decided to send them because the LandonHome app she’d had to install after being hired logged all messages, and the caring, somewhat overprotective father they’d created would have checked in with her regularly. Ava smiled as she sent a message back assuring her ‘Dad’ that she was, indeed, eating her vegetables and making friends, but there were no new boys in her life.

@DanielShaw: Good. No boys are good boys.

Ava shook her head, and sent back a laughing emoji. Her screen pinged again, and she stepped to the side of the hall to answer it.

@DanielShaw: I know you said you’d only be able to check in once a week or so, but I was getting worried. Are you off for a few days? Should I drive up to check on you?

@AvaShaw: No, I’m really fine, and I’m an adult. I have two days off, and then I’ll be working for two weeks on, four days off, and repeat. Come up when I get my four day break! I can’t bring you inside the house, but we could rent a hotel room, or get a homestay for a few days.

@DanielShaw: I’m holding you to it. Call me.

@AvaShaw: Will do. Love you!

@DanielShaw: Love you, too.

She pushed aside the feeling of melancholy the exchange triggered. She remembered sending messages like this to her mom, before Molly died, and it was hard to do it now, knowing it was all just pretend. Still, they needed to establish that Ava Shaw had a reason to leave Landon House, and stay away overnight, and a visiting father was a reason Carl Landon would understand.

Tucking her screen back into her pocket, Ava headed back to her suite. It was time for a council of war.