by Natalie Grey
He scrambled under the ledge while Gracie waved the others onto the rocks and peered into the darkness in front of him. “Light spell, anyone?”
“Sec,” Ushanas called, and a moment later, a ball of fire floated over next to Jay.
Jay looked at the walls around him, which were reflecting the flickering light, and sighed when the fireball went out. He twiddled his thumbs, and a moment later called, “Ushanas? Another fireball?”
“I’d be glad to,” Ushanas said, “if you could tell me where to send it.”
“What?” Jay looked around. “Oh, fuck!”
He wasn’t near the ledge anymore. In fact, it was hard to tell where he was, and he suddenly had the dizzying sensation that he might be falling and not even know it. Panic gripped him, and he wondered if this was how Gracie felt on the airships.
“Get hold of yourself,” he muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” Ushanas said. There was a grin in his voice. “Just kidding, man. I know you were talking to yourself. How do we get in there?”
“No idea. I wedged myself under the ledge and must have fallen in somehow.” He couldn’t see anything, and he couldn’t tell which way was up, despite feeling his feet on the floor in the real world. It was immensely disconcerting.
A moment later, however, the rest of the group popped into existence around him, and their uniform alignment provided him with a reference for up and down. Jay breathed a sigh of relief.
“There really is nothing here,” Gracie said, awed. “I didn’t think it would be so disorienting. Kinda freaking me out, and I definitely can’t look down.”
“Here.” Alex had reached out into nothingness. “I gotcha.”
“Best roommate ever,” Gracie managed. Although they were on opposite sides of the group, their hands met and clasped.
Jay looked around in disappointment. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “I don’t know, let’s take some screenshots and head back?”
“Sounds good!”
The group posed for screenshots, danced around in the nothingness, and chattered away to each other as Jay paced methodically around the area. He didn’t see anything but had a thought. He wondered if anyone had thought to disable his login yet. If not, he could trace where his character had been and use that to isolate the code for this area. If what Harry had hidden was still here, he might be able to find it that way.
He decided that when he logged out, that was the first thing he would check.
“I told you,” Dhruv said to Dan. The Indian man raised a single black eyebrow. “What did you really think there would be?”
Dan didn’t rise to the bait. “I thought it was worth exploring. And shouldn’t you be happy? As I recall, you were worried about them finding something.”
“It’s risky,” Dhruv said simply.
“And when you have a non-risky plan, I will listen to it.” Dan returned to watching. “For now, I’m going to see what he does as soon as he logs out.”
Chapter Three
“All right, everyone.” Gracie’s voice came through the Aosi filter, emerging echo-y and epic-sounding. “I am exhausted. I’m calling it a night, but you all have fun, okay?”
“Good night,” Alan called. “If we go into any other glitchy zones, we’ll take screenshots for you.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Gracie laughed and then gave a yawn that the filters turned into a haunting whisper of sound. “Wow, I feel very epic right now. ‘As the prophecy has foretold, indeed.’ I am going to snarf down some cold lo mein and go to bed.”
“Truly, we are blessed to have a leader so inspired by the gods,” Ushanas intoned. “All hail."
"All hail,” the rest of them repeated solemnly.
Jay snorted, then yawned. “I’m going to go to bed too. Turns out I’m too old to stay up all night anymore.”
“I’m going to look like hell if I don’t sleep,” Kevin weighed in.
“All right, everyone go get some sleep,” Gracie said. “That’s an order from your gods-appointed leader.”
There was a sleepy round of goodnights, then people ported back to their home points and logged out with a series of bloops.
When the cozy confines of his favorite inn materialized around him, Jay followed suit.
Alone in his apartment, he took off his headset and yawned widely as he removed his VR suit. He hung it carefully on the stand and ambled into the kitchen to stare at the various half-eaten containers of takeout he’d ordered earlier that night.
He knew he should learn how to cook, but, as always, he put that off for another time. He decided, on reflection, that the remains of the burrito were probably the most edible, and gave a pleased nod as he chewed.
Edible.
Mostly.
He wandered around the apartment as he ate. He’d been living here for three years now, and he’d managed to make the place his own, mostly by accident. There was a ridiculously comfortable couch, gifted to him by the set of college students who’d moved out of the apartment at the end of the hall. He had a framed set of Star Wars prints his sister had gotten him, proffered with some good-natured jokes about how he hadn’t grown out of his nerdiness. Then there was the coffee table that was perpetually on the edge of falling apart, and a potted palm he’d managed to keep alive since college. He even had curtains and a rug like a real adult.
He didn’t think he was a real adult, but someone who walked into his apartment might mistake him for one. He’d settle for that.
When he finished the burrito, he looked toward the bedroom with a sigh. He knew he should get some sleep. He was so exhausted at this point that his eyeballs were dry and his head ached. He should take a shower—in a bathroom that had a proper towel rack, no less—and go to bed in a bed with sheets and a real bed frame, because that was what a reasonable adult would do.
He already knew he wasn’t going to do that, however. Instead, he was going to spend a few minutes stressing about breaking into the Metamorphosis Online databases, and then he was going to actually do it.
Come on, man, he could hear Gracie saying in his head. If you’re going to do it, do it. Shit or get off the pot. Knowing her, she’d probably throw in some choice speculation about just how many deranged sheep his family tree included.
The thought made him give an undignified snort of laughter, and he went over to his desk with a renewed sense of purpose. If he was going to do this, he should just do it—and Gracie was a big part of the reason why. From the little bits and pieces Jay had spliced together, every person in the guild was dealing with something in their life that made the game a necessary escape.
Gracie had built a team that allowed each of them to escape without wallowing.
For the guild’s sake, Jay didn’t want to burn Metamorphosis Online to the ground, which might otherwise be his urge. He didn’t particularly trust Dan and Dhruv to run the game world, but he didn’t want to nuke anything or cause an explosion that would ruin his guildmates’ haven.
So, while he didn’t particularly trust Harry, he was going to work with him, because figuring this whole mess out was the only way Jay could think of to solve it.
He let muscle memory take over as he logged into the VPN. Part of why he had held off was his fear that an unauthorized login would be flagged somehow in the system. In a well-run company, his access would have been shut off immediately when he was fired.
But he wasn’t entirely surprised when his login still worked. He swallowed, blew out a long breath, and shook his head. The IT team was overworked these days, what with managing the constant stream of glitches, forgotten passwords, and bug fixes their player base ran into. Not only that, Dragon Soul Productions still functioned very much like a small company, without any of the set-in-stone processes a larger corporation would have.
Which gave Jay just the opening he needed. He navigated to the databases that housed the players’ progress records and brought up his own. He could track where his character had been over the course
of his session tonight, and he followed the trail with his eyes narrowed: Howl’s Inn, Kithara, Night’s Edge…
Zone 8 DUPLICATE DELETE.
Jay’s lips quirked. How many records, from NPC names to zone designations, had been botched somewhere and hastily renamed in anticipation of a cleanup sweep that never came? Crunch time was always a crazy scramble to get the product out the door and shipped, and no one had time to clean out files that weren’t causing glitches.
Jay couldn’t think of a better way to hide something in plain sight. If this had been Harry’s plan, it was a good one.
The zone wasn’t actually empty. An empty zone would be sterile gray in color, with visible grids. Zone 8 was entirely black. It had been filled with color, which was part of what interested Jay. The black could hide something.
And it did. He fumbled his way through adding a light source, searching online and getting through the process with a large amount of swearing. He had watched some of his colleagues do zone design, but he’d never done it himself. All he had was general knowledge about how the database worked.
It was worth it, though. When he finally managed to add light—an incongruous elegant lantern that floated and cast flickering shadows—he could see what Harry had hidden.
“Son of a bitch,” he murmured.
The sword, shield, and armor were some of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. He could not imagine how much better they would look when he was actually in the game. The armor was arrayed on a custom-built stand and it gleamed faintly, jewels winking in the lantern’s light. The sword was suspended next to it, its scabbard a work of art inlaid with runes and mythical creatures, and the shield leaned against the armor stand, the faint light picking out a scene of the scattering of the races.
“Holy shit.” Jay fumbled for his phone and typed a quick text to Gracie.
Log in RIGHT NOW.
Sam leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.
He hated this—the deception and the double-crossing. Jay had been his employee, yes, but Sam had always felt a kinship with him. Jay’s love of the game world was infectious, and he’d always viewed Sam’s relative ignorance about MMOs as an opportunity to share his enthusiasm, not as a reason to snub Sam or look down on him.
And now, Sam was going to be reporting Jay’s doings to Dhruv and Dan.
What made it worse, in Sam’s opinion, was the fact that he couldn’t really justify not doing so. If Jay just hadn’t broken into the game, there would be nothing to report.
However, Jay had, and there was no excuse for it since this wasn’t a matter of life and death. It was just Jay breaking the rules, as he’d always done. He and Sam had butted heads on that score more than once, and now here he was, doing it again.
“Gahhhh.” Sam rested his head in his hands and clenched his fingers in his hair. “Why did you have to log in, you idiot? You couldn’t just let it be?”
He had to tell Dan and Dhruv. He couldn’t afford to lose this job, and Jay had done something wrong.
But he wasn’t particularly happy to be doing it. He decided to go get a donut first. Then he’d tell Dan and Dhruv. He set his computer to record the changes that were flickering through the database and ambled off as slowly as he could reasonably walk.
Gracie had just pulled the covers up and snuggled into bed when her phone buzzed.
“You have got to be kidding me.” She squeezed her eyes shut and ignored the buzz. “Not important,” she told herself. “If it were important, they’d call.”
Her phone buzzed again, and curiosity got to her. After all, it wasn’t like she had anywhere to be in the morning, right? With a sigh and a curse for whoever was disturbing her, she threw the blankets back and stretched one arm out to feel around on her nightstand.
She ended up knocking her phone to the floor, which resulted in more cursing and some unsuccessful fumbling. Defeated, she turned on the light and squinted her way through finding the damned thing, which had wound up wedged between the nightstand and the bed.
“This had better fucking be good,” she muttered. When she saw the text, she groaned. “Noooo,” she typed back. “Sleep. Exhausted.”
RIGHT NOW, came the return text, insistent. Equip the stuff I’m putting in your inventory. A moment later, as if he could sense her internal debate, he sent, RIGHT NOW. SERIOUSLY.
“Ughhhhh.” Gracie shoved herself out of bed and stumbled out into the main room, rubbing her eyes. She raised an eyebrow blearily at Alex, who was on the couch having a low-voiced phone conversation. He frowned back in a wordless question, and she threw her hands up and shrugged.
“One sec,” she heard him say as she started putting on the VR suit. “Uh…Gracie? Whatcha doin’?”
“I don’t fucking know.” Gracie groaned. “Jay’s going on about some shit. I just want to sleep.” She put on the headset, then realized the system wasn’t turned on and gave a little moan of frustration. “Augh.” She stumbled over and pressed the power button, swaying silently on her feet as it booted up. It seemed to take forever.
“Not entirely sure,” Alex said in response to a question Gracie could barely hear. “Um, let me go into another room. I—oh. Okay. Well, I’ll see you then.” His voice was warm and self-satisfied, which made Gracie grin.
She looked over her shoulder as the game started to boot up. “Was that Sydney?” She had taken it upon herself to slip Alex’s number to a waitress who’d been checking him out, and despite Alex’s insistence that he never wanted to have another relationship in his life, he’d clearly been enjoying his conversations and dates with her.
“I’m not going to answer that,” Alex said loftily. “Weren’t you supposed to be asleep?”
Gracie gave him an amused grin. “Did I interrupt something?”
“You might have if it had been a few minutes later.” Alex raised an eyebrow. “But it turns out that having a half-asleep zombie roommate in the room doesn’t exactly set the mood.”
“Whoops,” Gracie replied. She dropped the headset onto her head. “Sorry.”
“Eh, I should sleep anyway. What are you doing? I’m logging in, wait for me!” He got into his VR suit as well.
“Not sure.” Gracie watched the game boot up around her and tilted the headset up so one ear was free. “Jay said to log in and equip… What is that?”
“New armor,” Alex said after he was in-game. “Whoa, damn, Gracie! Look at those stats.”
“Those stats,” Gracie agreed. “Damn. Where’d he find this?”
“There’s a sword and a shield, too,” Jay said in Gracie’s ear, making her jump.
“Jesus! Goddammit, I didn’t know you were online.”
“Uh-huh.” He was laughing. “Equip it right now, Gracie.”
“Okay, okay, okay. What’s the rush?”
“I just want to make sure. Well, is it bound to your character now?”
“I…looks like?” Gracie shrugged. “Yeah, it is. Holy shit, man, look at my stats now! Where did you find this?”
“In that glitch zone we went into,” Jay said, sounding self-satisfied. “Seems like Harry’s playing straight with us.”
“Hmmm.” Gracie pondered that, then yawned. Alex yawned too, and quietly logged out.
“Go back to sleep,” Jay said. “I just wanted to get this into your inventory since they can’t seem to fuck with your account anymore. Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh.” Gracie rubbed her eyes, shut down the system, and headed back to bed with a series of increasingly loud yawns. Through the partially open bathroom door, she caught a glimpse of Alex turning his head to study his face in the mirror, clearly posing to find his best angles, and she snickered quietly.
Alex could complain all he wanted, but he was clearly head over heels for this woman.
She crawled back into bed and was asleep before she even managed to get the covers pulled up.
“What armor?” Dan asked in frustration a few minutes later.
“A s
et of armor,” Sam said through a mouthful of donut. He swallowed hastily when Dan gave him an annoyed look. “Sorry. I stayed late because he logged in, and it’s been a long shift. There’s the lantern, right?”
“No lantern,” Dan said.
“Well, add one. Something for a light source.” Sam came to stand next to Dan as the other man navigated through the tables and added a sun in the distance. The zone lit up…
To show an empty armor stand, and no armor, sword, or shield. There was a pause, then Dan looked slowly at Sam.
“You said not to interfere!” Sam pulled the excuse out of his ass.
Luckily, Dan was still a reasonable person. The founder gave a sigh and dropped his head into his hands.
“You’re right, I did. You came to get me when he started looking, too. It was out of our hands.” He looked up at the screen and shook his head. “But Dhruv is gonna lose his shit.”
Chapter Four
Gracie took a long sip of her smoothie, glanced at the Ralph Lauren store, and sighed. She supposed she should get this over with, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.
She needed new clothes desperately. The tank tops and jeans she owned were all falling apart, and she had a ragged assortment of tee-shirts from college 5ks and charity events, but apart from that, there were only the dresses her parents had made her get for family events and the work uniform she had tossed immediately after she quit.
Now that she actually had money coming in every week from Metamorphosis Online, she was easily going to be able to make rent, and she had some left over to get new clothing. Something nice, dear, her mother’s voice said in her head. Nice, neat clothing. You should always present yourself to your best advantage.
Why, exactly, she should bother to do that when her “job” was playing a video game, Gracie didn’t know, but her clothes were literally getting holes in them. She needed something new. She drained the last of her smoothie, threw the cup in the trash, and sighed as she ambled into the store.
