The Player Plague

by Lucas Flint

  I soon saw the reason for that. A man wearing a dark cloak that covered his body from head to toe walked down the alleyway. He was a fairly tall figure, but the cloak he wore completely obscured his entire body, making it impossible to tell who he was. If I was looking at him in real life, I might be able to Scan him, but as it was all I could do was watch the footage and see it play out.

  The cloaked man stopped in front of the front door of the Base. He grabbed the handle and gently tugged on it before noticing the outside keypad. He immediately punched a password into the keypad, but when it apparently failed, he shook his head and held out his hand toward the front door. A full-sized holographic keyboard appeared before him, which he immediately began typing on like he did this sort of thing every day.

  After a few seconds of typing, the cloaked man dismissed the keyboard and then tried the door again. This time, the door opened and he went inside, though not without first glancing up at the camera as if to say he knew he was being watched.

  That was where the security footage ended, and Cy—who must have seen it as well—said, “Holy crud, boss! Did you see that? That guy broke into our Base without breaking a sweat. Who is he?”

  “Not sure, but based on that cloak, I’m guessing he’s with the Stalking Shadows,” I said. “I bet they sent one of their Assassins to take us down. Let’s head back to the surface. If he’s in our Base, then we have no choice but to engage him in battle.”

  “Battle?” said a familiar cool, calm voice behind me. “You wouldn’t want to find me. Not unless you want to spend the rest of your week in a hospital, anyway.”

  Cy and I whirled around to see the cloaked figure from the security footage standing before us. In-person, he was even taller than I thought. The hood still hid his face but there was something oddly familiar about the way he stood, like I had seen him somewhere before. Even stranger, though, was that my Hero Sense hadn’t picked up on him at all. Either he was a really high-level Villain with a cloaking Power of some sort or he had some other way of avoiding detection by my Power. Regardless, he was clearly an enemy who needed to be stopped before he killed us.

  Quickly, I Scanned the figure, but got this information:

  ERROR! [Cloaked Figure] cannot be Scanned due to Cloak of Shadow.

  Ah. His cloak appeared to be an item of some sort that negated Scan. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it after we took him out.

  “You sound awfully confident for a guy wearing a cloak,” I said. I summoned twin Ice Daggers in my hands, while Cy raised his fists like he was ready for battle. “But we outnumber you two to one. If anyone is going to be spending the week in a hospital, it will have to be you.”

  The Cloaked Figure chuckled. “Looks like you’ve learned a couple new Powers since I last saw you, Winter. And I really like the cape. It looks really cool.”

  Cy gasped and muttered to me, “He’s making puns, boss. He can’t be that bad if he makes puns, right?”

  I wanted to slap Cy in the face, but I kept my attention focused purely on the Cloaked Figure. “Don’t act like you know me. We’ve never met before.”

  “Actually, we have,” said the Cloaked Figure. “But maybe my cloak is confusing you. Let me show you who I am.”

  The cloaked figure raised his hands and lowered his hood. As he did so, Cy and I both gasped, because we had no trouble recognizing the man standing before us:

  It was FunkyFresh94, who we called Funky for short. And he wore a dead serious expression on his face.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  There was no mistaking the cloaked man standing before us for anyone else. Although his cloak hid most of his body, his face was most definitely Funky’s. He even still wore his football helmet, although now it was golden for some reason, which made me think Funky must have gotten some new Equipment since the last time I saw him. Either that or he had just spray painted it gold. Either option was likely with Funky, who was perhaps the oddest and most eccentric figure on Team Winter, if not the most mysterious.

  “Funky?” I said. I smiled and lowered my Ice Daggers. “So glad to see you. I thought you were an Assassin sent from the Stalking Shadows for a second there.”

  “No worries,” said Funky with a swift nod. “I know what you’ve been through recently. Better to be safe than sorry, I always say.”

  “But where’s Lennox?” asked Cy, looking around. “You know, your pet dragon?”

  As soon as Cy said that, a tiny red dragon the size of a cat shot out of the back of Funky’s cloak, did a quick circuit of the Basement, and then rested on Funky’s shoulders. Lennox the dragon looked quite content on Funky’s shoulders, but he was still looking at Cy and me carefully as if he wasn’t quite sure he could trust us yet.

  “Right here,” said Funky as he scratched Lennox’s chin. “I knew walking around in public would draw unnecessary attention to me, so I had to hide him in my Cloak of Shadow.”

  “Where have you been for the past two weeks, anyway?” I asked in confusion. “I mean, I know you have a life outside the game and all, but lots of stuff has been happening recently and I really could have used your help for a lot of it.”

  “As I said, I had some business to attend to in the real world.” Funky grimaced. “Still do, in all honesty. But when I learned about what was going down tonight, I knew I had to get back into the game as fast as I could.”

  “Do you mean the raid on the Z-Virus factory?” I asked. “How did you find out about that? Only the SI Games and Department of VR people know about that.”

  “Let’s just say I have some contacts in SI Games who are rather free with their information and leave it at that,” said Funky vaguely. “The point is that the Department of VR made a terrible mistake in locking you away here, even if they had good intentions for doing so.”

  I frowned. Although I didn’t argue with Funky’s last statement, I did have problems with his first. Funky always insisted he was ‘just’ a gamer, ‘just’ a Capes Online fanboy who happened to know a lot about the game and how it functioned, but for the longest time I had come to suspect he was actually one of the game’s programmers, designers, or developers. His knowledge of Capes Online’s mechanics and secrets was even deeper than Cy’s. I didn’t understand why Funky was so coy about his real identity, especially since he now knew mine, but I supposed that would be a question to worry about later. Seemed like everyone in this game had their own secrets.

  “Yeah, I agree, it was,” I said. “Doesn’t explain how you got in here, though.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Funky. “I needed to talk to you ASAP and I couldn’t wait until your twenty-four-hour limit was up. So I hacked into your Base’s security systems and bypassed the password-protected lock entirely. Don’t worry about replacing it. It should still work. I simply disabled it for a few minutes so I could get in.”

  My eyes narrowed. “And how did you know Cy and I were in the Basement? The Basement is a Secret Room. Even I didn’t know about it until yesterday.”

  “I didn’t see you in your rooms or the main Warehouse space,” said Funky. “Using simple deduction, I figured you must have found a Secret Room in your Base. Also, you left the Basement entrance open in your bathroom.”

  I glared at Cy. “Cy, did you forget to close the entrance to the Basement before we entered?”

  “Sorry about that,” said Cy apologetically. “I didn’t think anyone would be able to follow after us. Or that anyone could enter the Base at all other than us, that is.”

  “Normally, most people can’t,” Funky agreed. “But Secret Rooms can be entered even by people who don’t know about them if you leave the door open. That’s a feature most people aren’t aware of. So I’d recommend closing the door behind you every time you come down here to avoid making unwanted visitors aware of your Basement.”

  I was a bit annoyed that Cy hadn’t even mentioned that as a possible security issue, but decided that we’d just have to do that from now on, especially if we had any visitors over
who we didn’t want to be aware of the Basement. “All right, then. You said something about locking me away being a mistake. Not that I disagree with you, but I do wonder why you think that.”

  “Because the Z-Virus factory is a trap,” said Funky. “And the Glitch Elimination Task Force is about to walk directly into it unless we can stop them.”

  “A trap?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  Funky continued to scratch Lennox’s chin, the serious look on his face never changing. “You know by now that Atmosfear is working with Master Haru to spread a weakened version of the Z-Virus among the players and NPCs of Capes Online, right?”

  “Of course,” I said. My eyes narrowed again. “How do you know that if you haven’t been playing Capes Online for two weeks?”

  “My contacts in SI Game told me,” said Funky without missing a beat. “They are very helpful.”

  There was Funky’s deliberate vagueness again. I liked the guy, but frankly, if he wanted to be a deceptive Villain than a brave Hero, I felt like he could pull that off without a hitch. “Do you know why Atmosfear and Master Haru are trying to do this?”

  “Not exactly,” said Funky, “but I got a clue from a spy within the Stalking Shadows that they are deliberately luring in both the Ninja Guild and the Glitch Elimination Task Force to the factory for the purpose of brainwashing them.”

  “Brainwashing them?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  Funky sighed. “Let me start from the beginning. You know that this particular strand of the Z-Virus is actually a weaker, less potent version of the original, right?”

  “Right,” I said, nodding, “but it’s still just as deadly.”

  “Not quite so,” said Funky, shaking his head. “It won’t kill you if it Infects you completely. It merely turns you into a soulless zombie that can be controlled by anyone with sufficiently high Charisma.”

  “Really?” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s what the SI Games developers discovered while trying to design a vaccine,” said Funky. “Anyway, it appears at this point that the Stalking Shadows intend to Infect both the Ninja Guild and the Task Force with the Z-Virus in order to make them subservient to Master Haru. In one fell swoop, Master Haru will have rid himself of his biggest rival in Adventure City and get some very powerful minions who will obey his every command.”

  I froze when Funky said that. I was thinking about Targetman and how high-leveled he was. I understood that most of the Glitch Elimination Task Force members were similar to him in level. “If Master Haru gets both the Task Force and the Ninja Guild on his side …”

  “He will be almost unstoppable,” Funky finished for me. “Which is why I need your help. You already have this as your mission. Plus, you know about the issue already, so I don’t have to fill you in on why this is a bad thing.”

  “If this is what Master Haru is trying to do, then why don’t you warn SI Games?” I asked. “You have contacts in the company. Why not let them know so they can call back the Task Force?”

  “Because no one listens to—I mean, I’m just a player,” said Funky. He put a hand on his chest. “They probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway and would probably be more interested in finding out how I knew that information than anything.”

  “I see,” I said. “So you decided to take matters into your own hands and stop Master Haru and Atmosfear yourself?”

  “Pretty much,” said Funky. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not entirely by myself, of course. There’s no way I could take on the Stalking Shadows myself. That’s why I need your help. Will you come with me?”

  Suddenly, a brand new notification appeared in my view:

  CUSTOM TEAM MISSION: Stop Master Haru and Atmosfear

  Your Teammate FunkyFresh94 has explained the real situation to you and why he needs your help. Will you leave your Base and go with him to stop the Stalking Shadow’s dastardly plan to brainwash the Ninja Guild and Glitch Elimination Task Force or will you elect to stay behind and let him do it?

  NOTE: Accepting this mission does not override any previous missions.

  ALIGNMENT: Hero

  DIFFICULTY: Intense

  RARITY: Unique

  SUCCESS: Defeat Master Haru and Atmosfear

  FAILURE: Allow all members of the Ninja Guild and Glitch Elimination Task Force to be Infected with the Z-Virus

  REWARDS: Unknown (to be determined by FunkyFresh94)

  ACCEPT? Y/N

  “Wait …” I squinted at the screen. “Are you offering me a mission?”

  “I am,” said Funky. “Certain kinds of players can create custom missions that other players can complete. I am once such player and thus I am offering you this mission.”

  “Well, you really don’t need to offer it to me,” I said as I hit ‘Y.’ “I was planning to go and stop the Stalking Shadows anyway.”

  “I know, but I thought I would give you extra motivation to do so,” said Funky. He winked at me. “Plus, I will definitely make it worth your while. Trust me on that.”

  If Funky was indeed one of Capes Online’s developers, as I suspected he was, then I had no reason to doubt that he could reward me greatly if I accepted his mission. Perhaps he would have a secret piece of Equipment to give to me or something. In any case, it didn’t hurt to accept the mission, regardless of what the rewards were.

  “All right, then,” I said. I tossed my Ice Daggers away and said, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  Funky smiled. “Sure thing, but we need to make one more stop before we do so.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The ‘one last stop’ Funky spoke of was Recover’s Base. Although Recover’s Base was in the exact opposite direction from the factory, Funky explained we still had time to talk to her because the raid wasn’t going to happen until tonight. I thought we should go and attack the factory early, but Funky insisted we needed a plan and more allies before we tried to do that. His explanation made sense, although I hoped we didn’t spend too much time at Recover’s Base.

  The only thing I was really worried about was leaving my Base. When I mentioned to Funky that Chuck had locked me inside my Base, he pulled out that holographic keyboard again and overrode the command that kept me locked in my Base. That was how I knew he had to be a Capes Online designer, although I guess he could have been a hacker as well. He also made it so that the Department of VR wouldn’t notice me leaving my Base, although his explanation for how he pulled that off was so technical it sounded like a different language to me. All I understood was that all of the Department’s monitoring systems would show to Chuck and the other agents that Cy and I were in my Base under lockdown and the only way they could know otherwise was if they personally visited my Base themselves, which seemed unlikely to happen given the current circumstances.

  In any case, Funky told me not to worry about Chuck or anyone from the Department finding out about my disappearance. And if someone did find out somehow, he told me he would deal with it. He sounded very confident when he told me that he would handle it, making me think that he had to be pretty high up in SI Games if he could deal with agents from the Department of VR who oversaw Project Second Life.

  With that out of the way, we quickly made our way to Recover’s Base. It took us about an hour to walk there, despite the shortcuts Funky took. The short walk did allow me to see more players moving about the streets of Adventure City. It looked to me like the number of active players was going back up again, perhaps people getting over their fear of the Blackout. It was a good sign that things were returning to normal, but at the same time, I felt a little worried that something even worse than the Blackout was about to happen tonight if we couldn’t stop it in time.

  When we reached Recover’s Base, Funky didn’t knock or even slow down. He pulled out his keyboard and punched in a code so fast I couldn’t even follow. The front doors of Recover’s Base slid open silently, allowing all three of us to enter without trouble. I half-expected Recover’s sec
urity systems to stop us, but I guess Funky must have disabled them like he disabled mine, because I didn’t hear any alarms going off as we stepped into the waiting room of Recover’s Base.

  But as soon as we passed over the threshold, I heard the sounds of multiple sets of footsteps making their way toward us and then four people stepped out of the hallway and into the waiting area. The first two were Recover and Brawn, who smiled and waved at us when they saw us. The other two were Dillo and Hop. The two of them didn’t look very different from the last time I saw them. Hop was still staring at her phone like she was bored, while Dillo also smiled and waved at us.

  “Dillo!” I said, shaking his hand when we met in the middle of the waiting room. “I didn’t know you were back online! Haven’t seen you since the Blackout.”

  “Yeah, I’m back,” said Dillo. He nodded at Recover. “I got a message from Recover about what’s going down tonight. Said you were going to need a lot of help so I couldn’t stay offline any longer.”

  I looked at Recover. “Did Funky already explain the situation to you?”

  Recover nodded. “Yes. He told me about the Z-Virus and what it does and what Master Haru and Atmosfear are going to do with it. No way I was going to let this happen if I can stop it.”

  “Awesome,” said Cy, clapping his hands together excitedly. “The Team is back together! Man, feels like the old days again.”

  “The old days of two weeks ago?” I said to Cy.

  “You know what I mean,” said Cy, waving his hand at me dismissively. “Point is, we’re all back together again. This is so cool.”

  “Yes, it is,” Funky agreed. “And we need to be together again if we’re going to pull this off. But we’re also going to have to handle this carefully because the attack is going to be tonight and if we just rush into danger blindly, we could make the situation even worse.”