“Dennis,” he grated as he struggled to take off the headgear. “Where is he?”
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Yeah, you could say that. I need to see him.” He reached for the straps, but Tyler stilled his hands. “It’s an emergency!”
“So is keeping your heart from exploding. Just rest, alright? I’ll call for Dennis.”
Harrison rested his head back against the angled table and closed his eyes. What the hell just happened? His heart pounded painfully against his ribs and he was sweating. His knees wobbled and he figured he should thank Tyler for keeping him strapped in, otherwise he would’ve fallen on his face.
“Harrison? Dennis is on his way down. Here, drink some water.”
Harrison opened his eyes and accepted the bottled water with a murmured thanks.
“Care to tell me what you were doing? Everything spiked and then it was like you went offline, but you were still clearly logged in. I thought we found all the glitch spots, is that what you found?”
“No,” Harrison whispered, and he drank down half the bottle of water. “Pretty sure this was something else.” He wondered if he should tell Tyler, but Dennis didn’t say to let anyone else know what he was experiencing within the game. “All I know is Dennis needs to hear what happened.”
Tyler nodded. “Right, he should be here in a few minutes. Just hang tight. I’m going to send a message to your guild and let them know you’re in good hands.”
“Thanks.”
Harrison closed his eyes again and breathed in deeply, wanting the trembling in his body to stop. Seeing Valen appear like that freaked him out enough, but what she said to him…his world. There was no way an NPC would say something like that, right? It wasn’t possible.
“Harrison?” Dennis asked.
“Right here, I think.” Harrison opened his eyes to see Dennis staring at him like a worried parent. “If you have some time, I think we need to talk.”
“Of course. Let’s get you unstrapped and we’ll go back to my study. You look like you could use a drink,” Dennis helped Harrison to his feet, steadying his one arm as Tyler gripped the other. “Thank you, Tyler.”
He nodded and turned back to monitor the other five players at his station.
Harrison leaned into Dennis as they left the lab and moved towards the stairs. The older man didn’t say a word until they were safely in his apartment with the door closed. He guided Harrison down the same hall as the computer room he saw yesterday and opened another door. A comfortable couch and two chairs occupied the space as well as a large, wooden desk near the back and several shelves filled with books. Dennis deposited him on the couch and bustled over to a small cart with several bottles of whiskey and glasses.
“Just water, please,” Harrison forced himself to say.
Dennis’ brow arched at his request. “Are you sure?’
“Yeah, I guess I assumed it was in my file or whatever, but me and alcohol don’t exactly get along too well. I’d hate to ruin my streak now.”
“Nor would I. Water it is.”
Dennis filled one glass with ice and water from a pitcher, and another with whiskey. He handed the water to Harrison and sat down heavily in one of the winged chairs. They both drank in silence, Harrison resting his head back against the arm of the couch as he closed his eyes and the fight replayed over again in his mind.
“Does this have to do with what we discussed yesterday? The tampering of the game?” Dennis finally asked.
“No, this has to do with the game knowing there’s a difference between its reality and ours.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I saw Valen, again today. I mean Valenastrious,” he muttered. “She cornered me just outside the second dungeon. She said something…it shouldn’t have been possible, but she said it and when I asked her to repeat it, she said something completely different.” He sat up suddenly, wincing when the room spun and a headache bloomed to life behind his eyes. “She knew she was lying to me. I saw it in her eyes. Her damn, NPC eyes!”
“What did she say?”
Harrison held his face in his hands. “She said perhaps in your world, but not in mine.”
“Harrison, it is possible she simply meant your world as in the human world. She is from a different dimension.”
“No, this wasn’t that,” he said in a rush, knowing how mad he sounded.
“Spending so much time in this game can mess with a person’s mind. Perhaps you need a rest, a few days to re-establish yourself in reality,” Dennis said. “I will speak with your guild members in private once they have logged out for the day.”
“No, just listen to me! She knew she wasn’t real, at least not to me. I saw it in her eyes!”
“What you are saying is impossible.”
“Didn’t you say you had built an algorithm into the system to recognize players and shape the game according to how they played? What if that’s what this is, a manifestation or something that came from what you started? The whole corridor was stuck in some sort of glitch while she was there with me, like it was trying to kick her out.” Harrison pushed to his feet, running his hands madly through his hair. “She knew, and Tavin…Tavin acted strangely for an NPC, too.”
“Tavin? She was there, too?’
Harrison nodded. “I had to do something to distract Valenastrious. She wouldn’t let me go and I didn’t want her hurting anyone else, so I used the horn and summoned Tavin. She got there and they started fighting.” He scrunched his face, those few moments a blur in his mind. “She called the Demon Queen a murdering bitch and went after her.”
Dennis’ face paled and he drained his glass of whiskey before walking to the table and pouring another. “What else did you notice about this fight?”
“Neither one had health bars,” Harrison whispered. “And Tavin, she yelled at me to get out.”
“And then you logged out, yes?”
“About sums it up, yeah. Dennis? What the hell is this, what’s going on? Is this some sort of error in the code or something?”
Dennis drained his second glass and set it down hard on the table. “No, not even close. This is a new development even I did not foresee.”
Harrison’s breathing increased and his heart pounded in his chest. “What are you talking about? What type of game did you create, Dennis?”
“I need you to rest for the remainder of the day while I speak with my techs. Please, stay here in my apartment. I do not want you leaving and exciting yourself. Stay here, rest, help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen and I will return for you as soon as possible.”
“You can’t just keep me locked up in here!”
“I’m not locking you in. I am asking you to let your mind relax and reset itself. The past two weeks have been long. Your guild will be fine without you the rest of the day.” Dennis rested his hand on Harrison’s arm, giving it a solid squeeze. “Please, I am only looking out for your best interest.”
Harrison wanted to go with him and hear what they were going to talk about, but the hard look in Dennis’ eyes said that wasn’t about to happen, and this was the man asking nicely. “Alright,” he said, and he sat back down. “I’ll wait here for you.”
“Good. Get some rest, sleep if you can. The bags under your eyes have grown larger the past few days.”
“You noticed that?’
“I notice many things, Harrison. I will return for you soon enough.”
Harrison heard Dennis’ steps walk through the apartment and the door open and close. He was alone, completely alone. His eyes lingered on the whiskey as his mouth watered for it, wanting that burning liquid down his gullet so bad. But he turned away and lay out on the couch. He glared at the ceiling, playing his last encounter with Valen and Tavin over and over again in his mind. Eventually, his eyelids grew heavy and they closed. His breathing evened out and, before too long, sleep took hold.
His dreams were anything but peaceful. He ran through a forest with
Willy by his side, being chased by a cackling horde of demons. They called out his name, called for him to join them, to lead them in the fight against the heroes. He winced at the sharp sounds of their words cutting at him like razor blades. Suddenly, Willy disappeared from his side and Harrison was left all alone, surrounded by dead and burning trees, green fire glowing from within their trunks. Fear seized his legs, his arms, his very lungs until all he could do was fall to his knees and wait for the end to come. The demons closed in around him, but they were no longer demons. The faces of his guild members closed in, cutting off any chance he had of running away. They pointed accusing fingers at him, blaming him for their deaths and for ruining their lives.
For tearing yet another family apart.
“No,” Harrison wailed, slapping his hands over his ears. “No! I wouldn’t! I didn’t!”
“Yes you did,” Maverick screeched. “You betrayed us! You killed us!”
“No!” Harrison curled into a ball, rocking back and forth as his guild moved in closer. He saw them clearer, covered in blood as they chanted his crimes over and over again. Tears streamed down his face and Harrison waited for them to finish him off. To put an end to his misery. He was nothing more than an impostor. A damn failure.
Maverick shifted into the beast form before him and raised her paw. Right when she brought it down on his face, Harrison shot awake off the couch, heart pounding and gasping for air. Sweat covered his brow and he sank back into the cushions, surrounded by the dim lights of the study. He peeked out into the hallway towards the windows and frowned. The sun was setting and Dennis hadn’t returned, at least not that Harrison knew. He swung his legs around, placing his feet on the floor, and he tried to shake off the horrible nightmare. The whiskey called to him even more now, but he curled his hands into tight fists until his nails bit into the tender flesh of his palms. He was not going to crumble at the first sign of pressure. Not when he made it this far.
The door to the apartment slammed open and he glanced at the doorway to the study. “Dennis?”
The apartment was quickly darkening as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. He assumed Dennis would turn lights on as he went, but there was only a quiet set of steps moving towards Harrison.
“Hey, I think I can head back to my room now. Slept for a few hours. Your techs tell you anything new?”
A shadow loomed in the doorway, followed by the glint of something shiny. “Oh I have found quite a few new things,” Rodney said, stepping into the room with a leer on his face.
Harrison leapt off the couch in a rage, but the sight of the knife in the man’s hand stilled him. “How did you get in here? What are you doing?’
“Paris has grown impatient. The time has come for you to prove your worth and deliver.”
Fear flooded his body as Rodney approached, the look of a killer in his cold eyes.
Chapter 14
Harrison considered yelling and calling for help, yet—with Rodney keeping the tip of the knife pressed hard in between his shoulder blades—this wouldn’t be such a good idea. With each twist of the man’s wrist, Harrison sucked in a breath, thinking it could be his last.
“Where is it?”
“Where is what, man?” Harrison grunted as the knife tip pierced through his shirt, pricking skin. “Damn it! Just tell me what you’re looking for.”
“The computer, I know there’s one in all the private quarters of the staff.”
Harrison’s brow wrinkled and his feet paused. “How do you know that?”
“Dennis thinks he’s so clever locking me away, but people like to talk. I heard two of the techs say something about their characters last night in the game. The other mentioned his private headgear in his room.”
“So?”
“So, what game creator makes a game like this but doesn’t give himself private access to it?”
Harrison wanted to keep arguing, but the knife pricked him again. “Why do you think I know where it is?”
“You’ve been in here all day with the man, not to mention all those other times. You expect me to believe you don’t know where it is? Stop talking and show me, now, or that old man is going to find pieces of you when he gets back.”
He had to let Dennis know somehow what was going on, yet he couldn’t stall Rodney any longer, not if he wanted to keep himself intact. He led the asshole down the hall to the room Dennis showed him the other day. “There, happy?”
Rodney shoved him hard inside the room. “Good. Take this and do what you were supposed to do when you first arrived.”
Harrison glanced at the drive in his hand. “You think this will work?’
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because this is Dennis Crawford’s private computer. There’s going to be security on inserting new drives. I might not be able to just slip it in and hope for the best.” Dennis wasn’t an idiot. There would have to be security on this server against such an attack happening…or maybe… “You know what, never mind. I’ll figure it out. Paris has waited long enough for this.”
Rodney’s brow arched, an expression quickly replaced by a dark smile. “There’s the Harrison I know. Always out for himself. You had me worried there for a while.”
“You know me,” Harrison said, hoping the shaking in his voice would be attributed to nerves about what they were doing and not his fear over that knife still too close for comfort.
He stepped up to the gaming station and looked around for a place to insert the drive. There were several ports along the top of the main computer and, holding his breath hoping this would trigger some sort of alarm, he slipped the drive into place. The red light on the back blinked and a screen popped up on the monitor before him. So far, he saw nothing indicating there was an intrusion on the computer yet, but he crossed his fingers, hell he crossed his toes that Dennis would see what was happening.
“What are you doing?”
“This isn’t that easy. The drive’s only so big,” he lied. The drive Rodney gave him was big enough to take nearly all the information off the computer, not that the oaf with the knife would understand that. “What did you do the other day that caused the game to crash?”
He moved his fingers across the keyboard, searching for the main file center on the computer, and clicked it open. He wasn’t actually going to download any files, but he was certainly not going to waste this opportunity to do some snooping around on the game.
“A few of the players and me had a sick day. We snuck into a server room and attempted to do the same thing you’re doing. The idiots with me triggered a glitch, crashed the game and set off a few alarms,” Rodney muttered. “Damn nerds and their high tech shit.”
“You realize you technically work for a nerd who uses all this same high tech stuff.”
“Just hurry it up, would you?”
Harrison nodded as he looked through the file names, searching for anything that might give him a clue as to what Dennis put into the game that would have it react so strangely. He was hovering over a file marked AI with a question mark behind it when the apartment door slammed open again and the sound of yelling along with rushing footsteps charged towards the room.
“What did you do!” Rodney yelled, rushing over. He aimed the knife at Harrison who shrugged.
“Nothing, man. I told you he probably had it protected!”
“Move!” Rodney shoved Harrison to the floor and beat at the keyboard with his fingers, cursing under his breath. “Damn it!”
“Move away from the computer!” a man yelled.
Harrison glanced at the doorway to see two of the security guards who patrolled the halls with guns aimed at Rodney. Not thinking twice, Harrison hunkered down as low as he could and held his hands up to show he was unarmed.
“He’s got a knife!” he warned the guards.
“Hands up and drop the weapon! Now!”
Rodney glared daggers at Harrison as he turned slowly around, knife still in hand. “You’re going to pay for this, Harper. R
emember that. Whatever happens next, me and you are not finished.”
The knife clattered to the floor and one of the guards rushed in to tackle Rodney to the floor, flattening him out on his stomach. He scooped the man’s wrists together in zip ties before hauling him to his feet and shoving him out the door.
Harrison didn’t move, shaking uncontrollably on the floor. The other guard stayed close-by, speaking something he couldn’t hear into the mic at his shoulder. He was toast, finished, done. Dennis was surely going to kick him out now and, when he left here, Paris would be waiting for him.
Harrison ducked his head, resting his forehead on his knees and waiting to see what horrible twist his life was about to take this time around. The guard stayed in the hall right outside the room for a long while before stomping back inside.
“Come on, Dennis is here and he wants to talk to you.”
Harrison let himself be hauled to his feet and trudged after the man. Dennis waited for them in the living room, a fierce frown set on his face and his fingers tapping hard against the arm of the couch. He nodded to the chair across from him and the guard set Harrison down in it. He stayed right behind, jaw clenched, ready for action, as if Harrison was going to try and fight the old man.
“Harrison,” Dennis said, then he sighed. “I fear you have not been truthful with me.”
The words couldn’t even make it to his lips, so all Harrison managed was to hang his head low.
“Why don’t we start from the beginning, as I always ask you to, and you explain to me what is going on in my facility? Who that man is and who you are currently working for.”
Harrison covered his face with his hands. He knew this was eventually going to come back and bite him in the behind. He just had hoped he would’ve been gone before it did, or at least not made such good friends here. What if he never got a chance to talk to them again and explain things?
“That man,” he started, “is Rodney and he works for a goon named Paris Benson.”
“Benson?”
“Yeah, he’s not the greatest guy and, after our conversation yesterday, I realized he might be one of those investors you told me about, the ones you didn’t want to do business with.”
The Wraith of Valenastrious: A LitRPG Epic (World of Samar Book 1) Page 20
