by Lucas Flint
Instead, I decided to contact the only person on my Friends List: Dillo.
Sitting down on my bed, I pulled up my inbox and sent Dillo a message:
Hi, Dillo,
Sorry for sending you this message so late, but I was wondering if you could tell me if there was a way to contact people outside of the game. I’m still pretty new in Capes Online, so I don’t know if there is some chat or messenger feature which allows us to talk to people in the real world. Please answer as soon as you can.
Winter
I sent the message and was surprised when I got a reply about a minute later:
Hi, Winter,
No problem. I’m usually up this late. I’m kind of a night owl, if you hadn’t guessed.
As for your question, of course you can call people out of the game. If you have their phone number, you should be able to place a call that will let you talk to them even if they don’t have a Capes Online account. There should be a phone in your Base that you can call people out of the game from. Just make sure to put 0 before the number. That’s how the game knows you’re calling a real-world number.
Hope I helped.
Dillo
I looked around wildly for a moment until I spotted an old corded phone sitting on the stand next to my bed. I picked up the phone and heard static on the other end, which was great because it meant that I had phone service in my Base. I wondered if I was going to have to pay for utilities or not.
Regardless, I sent Dillo a big thank you message and then closed my inbox. I then looked down at the phone in my hand, which felt light, nearly weightless.
A part of me was extremely worried about calling Sally. I had her phone number memorized by heart, but I was still worried about what would happen if I called her. Would she think it’s me calling her? Or would she think I’m some kind of idiot pulling a stupid prank and hang up on me?
There was only one way to find out. I dialed her number, hit enter, and, holding the phone up to my ear, waited with bated breath for Sally to answer.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
An eternity and a half seemed to pass as I sat there on my bed, listening intently to the phone ringing on the other end. A part of me wanted to hang up and go to sleep because I couldn’t predict how Sally would react to hearing my voice. But another part of me, the more courageous part, forced me to hold the phone up to my ear. I wanted to hear Sally’s voice more than anything. Even if she didn’t recognize me, just hearing her voice one last time would be worth more than all of the credits and experience in the game.
Finally, I heard a click on the other end and a feminine voice said, “Hello? This is Sally speaking.”
My heart practically jumped into my throat. For a moment, I was too choked with emotion to speak. Her voice was as clear and beautiful as ever, maybe more so. In my mind’s eye, I could see her beautiful olive-colored face frowning in confusion as she answered the phone. I wanted to grab her and hold her close, but I couldn’t even see her, much less touch her.
“Hello?” said Sally in a slightly more annoyed voice now. “Is anyone there? Hello?”
Shaking my head, I said, in a voice half-choked with emotion, “Sally, it’s me.”
“Who?” said Sally in confusion. “I don’t recognize your voice or this number. Is this a prank?”
“It’s not a prank,” I said, my voice still strained. I leaned forward, wishing I could see Sally’s face. “It’s me. Nyle.”
It was Sally’s turn to go silent on the other end. I almost believed she had hung up until she said, in a shaken voice, “This isn’t funny, you know. I don’t know who you are, but—”
“No, Sally, it’s really me, Nyle,” I said as quickly as I could. “This isn’t a crank call. I’m really calling you. My voice might sound a little different, but it’s still me, the man you fell in love with and the man you were going to marry.”
I could practically feel Sally’s hesitation on the other end as she considered my words. “No. Nyle died a week ago in a car accident. I was just at the funeral yesterday. I saw his body. You can’t be him.”
“I know it seems weird, but you’ve got to believe me,” I said. “I really and truly am Nyle Maxwell. If you want proof, I know that your middle name, Fanny, comes from your great-grandmother who died of cancer after your grandmother died. I also know that you are a huge fan of the old Marvel movies and that you wanted to become a nurse because you wanted to help people and change the world.”
Sally went quiet again. No doubt she was shocked by how much I knew about her, but it was the only way to prove that I was who I said I was. Now I just needed to wait and see if she would believe me.
Finally, after several seconds of silence, Sally said, “How is this even possible? You are dead. I was told you died. I saw the picture of the car wreck. I saw your body. I touched your cold, dead face before your casket was closed. I saw them lower your coffin into the ground. I even stayed and watched them bury it. You can’t be alive.”
Despite how confused and even scared Sally sounded, I could not help but smile. “It’s hard to explain. I’m both dead and alive.”
“How does that even work?” said Sally. “How can you be both alive and dead? You looked pretty dead to me during the funeral.”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “My body is dead, but my mind is—”
I heard an abrupt click on the other end and then a deep, monotone male voice said, “Phone call terminated. All phone services for Hero Winter disable.”
“What?” I said. “Sally, Sally, can you hear me? Hello?”
“Sally cannot hear you anymore, Nyle,” said a familiar voice before me. “Nor can anyone else.”
I looked up and saw Chuck standing before me. I hadn’t heard him appear, yet here he was, standing with his arms folded behind his back and his usual cold expression on his face, his eyes hidden behind his shades. The only difference was that he seemed angrier, like he was about to start yelling at me for breaking the rules.
“Did you do this?” I said, holding out my phone toward him.
Chuck nodded curtly. “I did, but you shouldn’t have even tried it in the first place. Remember what I told you about Project Second Life. You are not allowed to contact your friends and family in any way, shape, or form unless we grant you permission to. I do not recall granting you permission to call your grieving fiancee and almost destroy everything we’ve spent three years building.”
I stood up, still holding the phone. “If you didn’t want me calling Sally, then why did you leave me with the ability to call people at all? Why not disable it beforehand?”
“An oversight,” said Chuck. “Someone was supposed to disable phone services for you in-game, but apparently this was forgotten during the mind-to-game transfer process. An oversight, nonetheless, I corrected. I also disable text messaging, email, and nearly every other form of communication with the outside world. You can now only speak to players and NPCs in-game. And your only communication with the outside world now is me, as it should be.”
My hands shook. “Sally deserves to know. All of my friends and family deserve to know.”
“The United States federal government differs,” said Chuck indifferently. “I do not see why you are so angry. I explained this to you back in the Waiting Room. Your college records indicate you were never the brightest student, but I assumed you were at least smart enough not to so blatantly disregard the rules we set to ensure the secrecy of the program and the safety of its participants.”
“Safety?” I repeated. “What safety? I’m not safe at all. There’s someone in-game who is gunning for me. Yeah, maybe I can’t die permanently, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone has already figured out who I am and is coming after me. And yet I can’t even contact Sally?”
“We are working on identifying and dealing with the player known as Atmosfear,” said Chuck without a hint of emotion in his voice. “Director Johnson has put me in charge of the investigation in regards to the tru
e identity of Atmosfear, as well as uncover the identity of the leaker in the Department of VR. Trust me, we will find him, one way or another. I can promise you that.”
I wanted to tell Chuck I didn’t believe him, but at the same time, I didn’t see any point in continuing to scream at him and call him names. As angry as I was, Chuck still had power over me. I imagined he had the power to do all sorts of awful things to me if I kept pushing his buttons. Best to calm down and try to find another way to talk to Sally, although at the moment I couldn’t see any way to do that if Chuck really disabled all out of game communication methods for me.
“Fine,” I said, sitting down on my bed again. I tossed the phone to the side, not even bothering to put it up. “I’ll trust that you guys know what you’re doing. But just so you know, I’m still not happy about this.”
“You don’t have to be,” said Chuck, again without showing any real emotion. “Now it is time for me to leave and resume the investigation I am in charge of. As for you, I still recommend getting a good night’s sleep and level grinding your character. If Atmosfear strikes again, you should be in top shape to deal with him.”
With that, Chuck blinked out of existence again, leaving me sitting alone in my room, still stewing in my anger and wishing I could punch Chuck in the face.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Although I was now lying on my bed, I didn’t close my eyes or feel even close to falling asleep. After hearing Sally’s voice for the first time in what felt like forever—only to have my call with her terminated before I could really tell her anything—I didn’t feel like sleeping. A part of me hoped that maybe if I slept, I would wake up back in the real world in my real body, that this would all turn out to be just a strangely realistic dream and that I didn’t really die in that car crash on the highway and that I would go back to my normal life again.
But I knew that that was just wishful thinking. I really had died in that car crash chasing after the infamous criminal Bryce Cunningham. No matter how many nights I slept and mornings I woke up to, I would still be in this game, still be a superhero, playing at being a hero. I wasn’t a real hero. Police officers in the real world who went out and risked their lives every day … now they were real heroes. I was just playing at being one. I could have been a real hero. But I really wasn’t.
And now, I had no way whatsoever to talk to my friends and family. Hearing Sally’s voice had been a wonderful thing at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it served as a reminder that I would never get to see her or anyone else in my life ever again. Chuck said Project Second Life would go public someday, but how soon was ‘someday’? And what would happen if the UN and SI Games decided that Project Second Life just wasn’t working and they scrapped it? Would I and the other participants be ‘deleted’ to avoid us revealing the truth about our real nature to the other players? Was it even possible to ‘delete’ a human mind downloaded to the servers of Capes Online? Was I even less safe than I thought?
I hated lying around worrying about this stuff. I had no control over any of this. I needed to keep moving forward like Dad always used to tell me. That was how Dad graduated from law school, became one of the most famous and respected lawyers in the country, and got appointed to the Supreme Court. That was how I graduated from the police academy with the highest honors and how I was going to get out of this game one way or another. Or at least find a way to talk to Sally and my family again.
With that in mind, I pulled up my character sheet to distribute my Stat Points and Power Points:
Secret Identity: Winter
Real Identity: Nyle Ash Maxwell
Level: 11
EXP: 250/1,000 (750 EXP to the next level)
Available Stat Points: 36
Available Power Points: 18
Alignment: Hero
Class: Fighter
Reputation: Budding Hero
Powers: Super Strength [Level 1], Ice Beam [Level 1. Next Level: 8 PP], Freezing Touch [Level 1]
Skills: Scan [Level 2], Dodge [Level 1]
Equipment: Ice Man Costume [Powers: 1/5]
Health: 20
Stamina: 15
Strength: 20
Defense: 12
Charisma: 5
Intelligence: 11
Agility: 18
Evasion: 6
Accuracy: 10
Dexterity: 17
Energy: 14
Luck: 1
HERO STATS
Courage: 10
Justice: 11
Trust: 6
Fame: 1
Willpower: 9
Seeing as I was relying on my ice Powers more and more, I dumped 16 Stat Points into Energy, bringing it up to a solid 30, and then tossed 5 into Health, bring my HP up to 25, leaving me with 15 Stat Points to distribute.
Scratching my chin, I added 5 Stat Points into Accuracy, which would probably help me hit enemies with Ice Beam more accurately, and then divided the remaining 10 Stat Points into Strength and Defense respectively. I hoped to be as well-rounded as I possibly could be, with a slight focus on elemental Powers like my ice attacks.
Now I needed to decide how to distribute my Power Points. I had 18 of those, so I dumped 8 of them into Ice Beam and got a new notification:
Congratulations! Ice Beam has reached Level 2! Chance of randomly freezing a target increases by 5% and damage dealt by Ice Beam increases by 10% overall! PP to next level: 10.
Now that was nice. I considered leveling Ice Beam up to Level 3 to see how powerful it would get, but decided against it. I wanted to have as well-rounded a character as I possibly could, so instead, I decided to level up Super Strength, which had been a big help during all of the level grinding I did today.
When I added my last ten Power Points to Super Strength, I got another notification:
Congratulations! Super Strength has reached Level 2! +15% to Strength! Cost: None [Passive].
Nodded at this, I dismissed the notification and looked over my character screen yet again:
Secret Identity: Winter
Real Identity: Nyle Ash Maxwell
Level: 11
EXP: 250/1,000 (750 EXP to the next level)
Available Stat Points: 0
Available Power Points: 0
Alignment: Hero
Class: Fighter
Reputation: Budding Hero
Powers: Super Strength [Level 2], Ice Beam [Level 2. Next Level: 10 PP], Freezing Touch [Level 1]
Skills: Scan [Level 2], Dodge [Level 1]
Equipment: Ice Man Costume [Powers: 2/5]
Health: 25
Stamina: 15
Strength: 25
Defense: 17
Charisma: 5
Intelligence: 11
Agility: 18
Evasion: 6
Accuracy: 15
Dexterity: 17
Energy: 30
Luck: 1
HERO STATS
Courage: 10
Justice: 11
Trust: 6
Fame: 1
Willpower: 9
Satisfied with the distribution of my stats, I closed my character screen and closed my eyes. Tomorrow, Cy and I would hit the streets looking for more missions and do even more level grinding.
More importantly, however, I would also try to find another way to talk to Sally. Despite what Chuck said, I was not yet ready to say goodbye to her or anyone else I knew in the real world forever. Sally deserved to know what happened to me.
And who knows, maybe I would even find a way to come back to the real world. If that was even possible, that is.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next morning found Cy and me at Super Coffee, where we were eating breakfast and having coffee again. I had a big plate of bacon and eggs, while Cy ate an even larger plate of waffles. I found it very odd how Cy could eat so many waffles and yet keep such a lean figure. I wondered if NPCs did not gain weight as quickly as players or if it was just yet another oddity of Cy, who seemed to be full
of them.
In any case, Cy and I sat inside Super Coffee today, in one of the booths closer to the back than to the front. This was to ensure that I saw every person who entered and exited the cafe. The reason I had gotten nearly assassinated a couple of days ago now was because I had my back turned to a street full of random strangers and pedestrians walking to and from everywhere. This did leave Cy with his back to the rest of the restaurant, but he assured me that he didn’t mind it and that he didn’t think anyone would want to kill him anyway.
“So what’s the plan for today, boss?” said Cy as he stuffed his mouth with a huge forkful of syrup-covered waffles.
I sipped my coffee. “Same as for yesterday. We’re going to look for missions to complete and bad guys to beat up so we can level up.”
“Oh, right,” said Cy, lowering his fork onto his plate. “I forgot. Weren’t we going to go shopping today, too?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “We can do that after breakfast. Don’t get too excited, though. We’re not going to spend that much time shopping.”
Cy’s shoulders slumped and he pouted slightly. “Okay. Clearly, you have yet to discover the true joys of shopping.”
I rolled my eyes, but at that moment I heard the bells from the door opening. The sudden noise made me look over at the door in time to see the strangest Hero I had seen yet enter the shop.
He was a tall, lean black guy wearing an absolute mishmash of armor and equipment. He had a mail chest plate, a football player’s helmet, thick rubber boots, and big leather work gloves, despite the fact that it was currently summer in-game. Even stranger, he had a tiny dragon sitting on his shoulder like a kitten, its tiny claws digging into his big shoulder pads for stability. Above his head, the nametag [HERO FUNKYFRESH94] hovered, which just added to his bizarre appearance.
“Whatcha looking at, boss?” said Cy, glancing over his shoulder.
