by Lucas Flint
“A ninja dictator would be pretty cool,” said Cy, stroking his chin. “Uh, in theory, I mean. Yeah. Theory.”
I rolled my eyes at Cy’s comment, but I was used to him saying dumb things like that. “So, Riku, you want me to spare Aimi because of the importance she plays in the whole Ninja Guild/Stalking Shadows conflict.”
“Exactly and correctly,” said Riku.
I glanced at the Ice Dagger in my hand, which still felt quite cold despite my immunity to coldness. “I still don’t see any reason to free you. You guys came here specifically to kill me. If I free you two, then you’ll just kill me. Yeah, as a player I’ll respawn, but I’m about halfway to the next level and I don’t want to lose all that experience, which represents about a couple week’s worth of work.”
“Please, have mercy on us,” said Riku, slamming his head against the floor again. I was worried he was going to get brain damage if he kept doing that. “Kill me if you must, but spare Miss Aimi. If she died on my watch, it would be a black stain on my family’s most honorable and illustrious name and we would be kicked out of the Ninja Guild forever.”
I frowned. As a general rule, I did not trust ninjas, but if what Riku said was true, then killing Aimi would definitely be a mistake. On the other hand, I had no idea if what Riku told me about the Stalking Shadows and this Master Haru fellow were even half-true. For all I know, he might have made up that story on the spot just to get me to lower my guard so he could kill me.
“If Aimi is the daughter of Yamamoto, then what is she doing out on a mission here?” I said, glancing down at Aimi. “I would think that Yamamoto would try to keep her safe, rather than send her on missions to take out fairly low-leveled players like myself.”
“Ah …” Riku shifted uncomfortably. “Miss Aimi has always—”
“Silence, Riku,” came Aimi’s voice, which was as sharp as the throwing stars she had thrown at me. “My presence here is supposed to be a secret. Do not tell this enemy of the Guild anything more than you already have.”
I looked over at Aimi, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, so I take it that means your daddy doesn’t know you’re out here? Did you sneak out to kill me without your dad knowing? Wonder what your old man would say if he found out that you put yourself in danger to take down a low priority target like me.”
Although my Ice Shackles kept Aimi firmly tethered to the floor, she nonetheless moved uncomfortably when I said that. “I will tell you nothing, Hero, other than what Riku has already told you. You do not need to know anything more. All that you need to know is that to kill me would bring down the wrath of the entire Ninja Guild upon you. Is that really something you wish to bring upon you and yours?”
Aimi met my eyes without a hint of fear or trepidation in her eyes. Even though I was probably a lot stronger and more powerful than her, I sensed that she was afraid of nothing. She wasn’t even afraid of dying. It was impressive and made me respect her just a little bit more. Not entirely, of course, but anyone who was that fearless was certainly deserving of respect, even if they were an NPC, although in my experience, NPCs were a lot more human than most people gave them credit for.
“All right,” I said at last. I tossed my Ice Dagger away, which shattered upon impact with the floor. “I won’t kill either of you guys.”
Riku breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, merciful Hero. We are—”
I held up a finger. “But I am not sure I want to let you two go, either. I need to think about it.”
I rose to my feet and looked at Cy. “Come on, Cy. Let’s find someplace private to discuss what should be done with these two.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I left my room but also left Cy back in there with the two ninja. Although I originally planned to talk this over with Cy, after a quick discussion with him, I decided it made more sense to leave Cy to keep an eye on Aimi and Riku than take him with me. I was confident that neither ninja would be able to escape their bindings, but I knew from experience just how tricky ninja could be and I didn’t want to take any chances. I told Cy to keep a close eye on them until I returned, but even as I left the room, I could already hear Cy rambling on to them about his favorite kind of potted plants and, if sunflowers had legs, what kind of dance moves they would prefer. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was being merciful to the two ninja by sparing them or psychologically torturing them by leaving them alone in a room with Cy without earplugs.
In any case, I left my room and found myself in the big, wide-open space of Warehouse 13, my Base and the first place I had spawned in-game after I completed my Origin Story tutorial what seemed like a lifetime ago now. My room was set in the office at the back of the warehouse, up a short flight of rusty metal stairs that hadn’t been used in years. I still didn’t know what the original purpose of Warehouse 13 was or who originally owned it, even after going through the filing cabinet in my room. Best I could figure, it had once been used by Synth Group—the massive in-game mega-corporation that created all of the Costumes and Equipment players and NPCs alike use—for storing extra product, but even that much was uncertain and I could easily be wrong about that.
Regardless, I had taken steps to make Warehouse 13 into more than just an empty warehouse. When I first got here, Warehouse 13 had been totally empty and abandoned, with a thick layer of dust on everything and a stale scent in the air that made you feel like you had walked into a buried tomb.
But now, as I flipped on the light switch, I could see all of the furniture and renovation Cy had done since the Blackout. On the left side of the warehouse was the ‘Living Room,’ as I had taken to call it. It was a collection of sofas and chairs that we had bought from various in-game stores centered around a huge, shiny flat-screen TV that could stream hundreds and hundreds of different channels. It also had about a dozen video game systems and a coffee table covered with books and magazines. That was where Cy and I could kick back and relax after a long day of work, although I rarely used it due to the fact that I liked to spend more time in my room than anything.
On the right side of the warehouse was what we had taken to calling the Kitchen. It looked almost exactly like a generic middle-class kitchen from the early 21st century, complete with marble countertops and the island in the middle, plus a stove top and oven, a fridge, a pantry, and all of the various cooking utensils you needed to cook pretty much whatever you wanted. I had decided to add a small kitchen so we would be able to cook and make our own food, which was both cheaper and healthier than eating out. Also, apparently, cooking your own food gave you greater Stat bonuses and buffs than if you ate out, though it was really dependent on how good a cook you were (I couldn’t help but remember how Cy’s own home-cooked chicken breasts had once left me in bed all day with massive debuffs that took me down practically to my Level 1 Stats).
In addition, the floors and walls had been painted, with the floors being a soft gray and the walls a dark brown. All in all, while Warehouse 13 still looked like, well, a warehouse, it looked a bit more like a home now, too. It wasn’t the same as the home I bought in the real world before my death, but it was better than nothing.
The reason I had decided to renovate the Base was because Cy and I had earned a boatload of credits as one of the hidden rewards for defeating Dark Kosmos two weeks ago, enough that we could purchase as much furniture as we wanted or needed. Seeing as I was going to be stuck in this game forever, I decided that I might as well try to make my new ‘home’ comfortable, so we went to one of the many stores in Adventure City that sold furniture to Heroes and got what we could afford. I could have gone even fancier—there was an entire automatic kitchen set where the kitchen was controlled by an AI that did all the work for you—but decided in the end to save up some of my money in case we needed it later on. My Dad always taught me to be frugal with money, especially when you didn’t have a regular ‘paycheck,’ so to speak, like me.
And, even though I bought the furniture and appliances, I let Cy do all the renovation and decorating.
It was something he really liked and was apparently good at. There was an option in my Base menu to move around the furniture myself, but I cared so little about playing house that I decided to delegate that responsibility to Cy, which was another option in my Base menu. I did, however, apply the paint on the floor and walls, although mostly because Paint Buckets were an item in my Base’s item inventory that could be ‘applied’ simply by clicking on the Paint Bucket in question, clicking the area where I wanted the paint to be applied, and then, voila, your new coat of paint was applied. It was cleaner and simpler than painting in real life, that was for sure.
Leaning against the railing overlooking my new ‘home,’ I thought about the ninja and what should be done with them. Aimi and Riku had literally tried to murder me in my sleep. I had every right to kill both of them and send their bodies to their Grandmaster as a warning of what would happen if he sent any other ninja after me. It would serve them right, especially since they interrupted my sleep, which meant I wouldn’t get the ‘Good Night’s Sleep’ buff in the morning that boosted my EXP gain by 5% for six hours.
On the other hand, if I killed Aimi and Riku, it would definitely lower my reputation with the Ninja Guild. It would probably function as the exact opposite of a warning. Especially if I killed Aimi, I could see Grandmaster Yamamoto declaring war on me and sending the entire Ninja Guild after me. Heck, he might even show up on my doorstep himself. If Riku’s behavior was any indication, the Ninja Guild took the whole ‘family honor’ thing extremely, almost suicidally, seriously. I might be able to get away with killing Riku—who, as far as I could tell, was fairly low-ranking despite being an Elite Ninja Assassin—but there was no way I could escape the consequences of killing Aimi.
As well, I felt kind of bad about holding them prisoner. Even if the two of them did just try to kill me, I felt kind of like a jerk for killing them. Doing anything other than letting them go seemed like something a Villain would do, honestly. Capes Online’s Alignment System would not flip your Alignment based solely on one decision—it took many decisions over a long period of time to do that—but it might negatively affect my Alignment, although I guess it depended on whether I killed them out of self-defense or not. Capes Online might have been a game, but that didn’t make the in-game choices any easier than the ones I had to make back in the real world.
“Good morning, Nyle,” said a familiar calm voice behind me all of a sudden. “Up bright and early, I see.”
Startled, I whirled around to see a well-dressed Arab man in a blue pinstriped suit and wearing a black tie standing not far away from me. He held a steaming hot mug of coffee in his hands, which he sipped occasionally with a contented expression visible underneath his well-trimmed beard. His thick sunglasses seemed entirely unnecessary given how bright the lights were, but for some reason he liked to wear them at all times even when he was indoors.
“Good morning?” I said as my surprised faded. I glanced at my in-game clock. “It’s midnight.”
“Oh, right,” said the well-dressed man with another sip of his coffee. “I forgot that Capes Online is off by about eight hours. Here in the real world, in Washington, it is approximately seven minutes and six seconds after eight o’clock in the morning. I just sat down to begin my day of work, after, of course, I stopped by Starclucks to get my favorite cup of coffee.”
“And let me guess, Starclucks made your coffee exactly the way you like it,” I said. “Right?”
“How did you know?” said the man, whose name was Charles Omar, although I liked to call him Chuck.
“Because you wouldn’t buy coffee from them if they didn’t make it exactly how you like it,” I said dully. “That’s why.”
Chuck chuckled. “You know me too well by now, Nyle. In some ways, we’re almost like coworkers. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“More like a lab rat and a scientist,” I grumbled. “But yeah, you could say that.”
Chuck frowned. “Still upset about being uploaded into Capes Online? I thought you would be over that by now.”
I sighed but didn’t respond right away. Chuck was an agent of the Department of Virtual Reality, the government department that regulated and enforced laws in Capes Online and other VRMMORPGs. They were also in charge of monitoring and observing the behaviors of the test subjects in Project Second Life, a top-secret joint project between SI Games and the United Nations meant to test the idea of digital immortality and see if it was possible.
I was one such test subject and I had been put here against my will after dying in a car crash unexpectedly. Although I had come to accept that Capes Online was my world now, I had to admit I still felt a little annoyed about being uploaded to the game against my will. I still wanted to know who had gone to all of the trouble of getting me onto the list of participants in the Project. Chuck knew, but he told me he couldn’t tell me, which was part of the reason I found him annoying at times.
Still, I knew Chuck ultimately wasn’t a bad guy, so I said, “Being stuck here doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, but I still miss the real world sometimes.”
Chuck nodded. “I understand. That is a common sentiment shared by many of your fellow Project Second Life participants. Even the ones who have fully assimilated into Capes Online still express a desire to go ‘home,’ as they put it, sometimes. Of course, that is impossible.”
That piqued my curiosity. I was well aware that half a dozen other Americans were involved in Project Second Life, but with the exception of one guy, I had no idea who the others were. Chuck had told me that I didn’t need to know them, but a part of me still wanted to meet them and find out how they were reacting to spending the rest of their lives in a game. Perhaps some of the older ones who had been here for a while would be able to teach me how to better ‘assimilate,’ as Chuck put it.
“Right,” I said. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “Now, is there a particular reason you decided to talk to me now or is this just part of your daily duties?”
Chuck sipped his coffee again, but a worried expression appeared on his normally calm features. “You are correct that I didn’t come just to make small talk. I have learned of some grave news regarding Project Second Life, news, I think, that you should know.”
I frowned. “Grave news? How grave are we talking here?”
Chuck took a deep breath. “Grave as in Project Second Life might be completely shut down. And with it, potentially the lives of every test subject in the Project.”
CHAPTER FIVE
My heart skipped a beat when Chuck said that. “What do you mean that Project Second Life might get shut down? Explain.”
Chuck took a deep breath as if to steady himself, although I think he was more concerned about me getting angry at him than anything. “You remember, of course, that Project Second Life was founded as a joint project between SI Games and the UN, particularly the five charter members of the UN, America, Britain, China, Russia, and France.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know that. Each country contributed about half a dozen people to the Project, right?”
“Right,” said Chuck. He stroked his beard. “And, of course, you remember the Blackout a few weeks ago and how that affected millions of people all over the world, including the UN member nations.”
I nodded again. The Blackout was the name for the event that happened about two weeks ago, when Dark Kosmos—a sort of sentient NPC who somehow got activated before SI Games was ready to ship him out—took over Capes Online and forcibly locked every single player into the game, making it impossible for players to log off. Even after my Team and I defeated Dark Kosmos, it had left a negative mark on the game that would probably never go away entirely.
“How could I not remember that?” I asked. “I was right in the middle of it. Heck, I was the guy who fixed it.”
“Of course, of course,” said Chuck. “You see, the reason I mention this is because the governments of the world were not quite happy with how we, the Department of VR, handled the Blackout.”
“You guys were locked out of the game, right?” I said. “You couldn’t even contact me, much less control anything. SI Games was also locked out of Capes Online.”
“Right, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Blackout was possibly the most dangerous event to happen in Capes Online since the Z-Virus outbreak five years ago,” said Chuck. “You saw what happened. Players fighting against players as Dark Kosmos manipulated everyone into supporting his agenda, often without their knowledge. Had you and your Team not gotten lucky, millions of players would have died when their bodies in the real world passed away from a lack of sustenance and exercise.”
“So why are the governments upset?” I said. “No one actually died, at least not in real life.”
Chuck looked at me like I was an idiot. “Because the lives of millions of people—millions of their own citizens and fellow countrymen—were threatened. Must I repeat myself?”
“I heard you, but I don’t see why this would result in shutting down Project Second Life,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “Especially since I, a test subject in Project Second Life, was the one who solved it.”
“The Blackout, to be frank, isn’t the main reason for Project Second Life’s reconsideration,” said Chuck. He sipped his coffee again. “Mostly, it’s Atmosfear.”
My temper shot up as soon as I heard that name, but I restrained myself. “You mean Bryce.”
Of course, Chuck and I were referring to the same person: Bryce Cunningham, the criminal whose reckless driving had resulted in my own death and who was also a fellow Project Second Life participant, playing in the game as a Villain known as Atmosfear. Like me, Bryce had been forced into the program by a mysterious individual for reasons unknown. Unlike me, though, the Department of VR and SI Games were unable to track Bryce, who had somehow managed to gain independence from the various monitoring systems both organizations used to keep tabs on Project Second Life participants.
