“What is it?” Sang asked as he stopped dead at a wall. With a black talon, he pointed at the wall itself. Sang shrugged and ran her hands across the wall, feeling around for a few minutes until she felt a stone push in. The wall made a grinding sound as it began to slide backwards, opening up and revealing a secret room.
Sang glanced around behind her, but there was no one watching. Everyone had left the tower to attend the feast. She crouched down a little and climbed into the secret passageway. The passage seemed to be deep—far deeper than what made sense for the size of the tower. With Jet following her, she walked for a few minutes until she came across a large wall made up of bright yellow gems. There were hundreds of tiny gems along the walls, in fact. Every few seconds, they would light up in some kind of pattern. Sang stared for a few minutes. Her mind darted back to the Morse code that she had deciphered a few months back. Was this the Allies trying to talk to her again?
Jet sat next to her and just stared at the wall. The lights repeatedly blinked as Sang began to try and decipher what was in front of her. Eventually, she was able to determine that it was indeed some kind of a code, but the letters made no sense. They seemed to offer sentences, but the words were full of gibberish. She scribbled them down on a piece of paper and stared at them. What did it all mean?
“I don’t suppose you want to take a crack at this?” Sang asked as she showed her notes to Jet. The dragon stared at the letters curiously and nodded.
“Draco’s language,” he hissed, baring his fangs at it.
“Can you read it?”
“Player Zac is to move to Bloodrock after the battle. Prepare to activate sleeper,” Jet read aloud.
“Is that really what it says? Who’s Zac? Activate sleeper?” Sang asked. “I don’t understand... what is this board? Is this how Draco communicates with players?”
“Excuse me?” said a voice behind Sang. She spun around to see that Captain Edwardson was standing right behind her. “This area is off-limits, Sang. I don’t even know how you found it.”
Sang saw his hand was slowly moving toward the broadsword hanging from his belt.
“Oh, uh, sorry, I just heard about some kind of Easter egg in here,” Sang said, forcing herself to laugh a little. “I didn’t realize this was some kind of a restricted zone.”
“What did you write down?” Edwardson asked as he pointed to the scrap of paper. His hand was firmly clenching the hilt of his blade, but he hadn’t drawn it yet.
“Oh, just… my journal?” Sang offered. She didn’t have any lies that would be able to convince him.
“I’m gonna—” His words were cut off as the words Sleep Time has begun, players! See you tomorrow appeared. She had never been more thankful to be forcibly removed from the game than she was at that exact moment.
“Oh, man!” Sang said as she leapt up from her pod. “Van, I’ve got so much…” she trailed off once she realized that both Neil and O’Hara were standing in front of her pod. Their expressions indicated that something was wrong. “Oh, hey, what’s up?”
“We’re moving up the meeting with the senator,” Neil said. “It’s starting in two hours.”
“What? I thought we had—”
“We all thought we had more time,” O’Hara said. “But somehow, he’s demanding this meeting, and our higher-ups are allowing it. So, get ready for an ass kicking.”
Sang glanced over at Van, who was groggily rubbing his eyes as he emerged from the pod. “Did I just hear that correctly?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Neil said. “They want the both of you in the board room. We tried to only put Sang in the spotlight, but Senator Franklin wants to talk to you both.”
“Ahhh, I don’t have anything yet,” Sang said. “I’m so close! I just had a major brea—”
“Hey!” Neil interrupted. “Don’t focus on what your breakthrough was going to be; instead, focus on figuring out some way to communicate to this guy about aliens without getting us all fired. Our asses are all on the line here.”
“What happened?” Van asked. “Why is this all so… so sudden?”
Sang remembered the words of the Draco message. Prepare to activate the sleeper. There had been fear about a leak. If Draco had the power, they might have been able to arrange for this witch hunt to start at the most inopportune time.
“Crap, let’s just go,” Sang said. “We’ve got one shot at this, and we’re going to have to do everything we can to convince this guy to keep the program going.”
Van shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The conference room was large enough to seat 24 people, but there were only four of them. Van and Sang were sitting across from Senator Franklin, an elderly man with a deep southern drawl and a white goatee. Next to the senator was Sang’s immediate superior, Frederick Yuri. Van didn’t know the guy very well, but at the beginning he had been a serious supporter of the program. On the other side of Yuri was a man in a suit, wearing sunglasses and utterly unconcerned with what was going on. Van figured he was probably a bodyguard or something.
“Miss Sang,” Senator Franklin said, his deep southern accent curling each word upwards, “do you really expect me to believe that this here video game has aliens inside of it?”
“Sir, I do understand that it’s a little hard to believe,” Sang said, “but as you have seen in all of our reports, we have reason to believe that we have been contacted by extraterrestrial creatures.”
This brought out a deep belly laugh from the senator. “Now listen here, sugar, I’m gonna tell you what I told that crackpot that you call a cryptologist: video games aren’t real. There is nothing to indicate that an alien presence is inside of some kind of computer game.”
“Sir, did you see the biological reports on me? I was healed from severe poisoning without any kind of external medication. Look at the detailed report on the technologically advanced level of these pods. And the deaths related to the game? All of this—”
“Now, let me ask you, Sang,” Franklin interrupted, “do I talk down to you? Do I assume that you are incapable of doing your job? I have read the reports. I have had the discussions with your bosses. The reason why I have called you both down here is because I want to find out what it is about this game that has convinced two otherwise rational individuals to believe that they are truly hunting for aliens. Sang, you are an excellent agent. Even in light of your recent failures, you have still performed admirably, and have a long and prosperous career ahead of you. Van, you might not be the kind of guy that I would consider to be upstanding, but I do understand that you have played this game for a duration of more than ten years, am I correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Van said. It was clear that this meeting wouldn’t convince the man of anything.
“So why is it that you both seem to think that ancient space lizards or whatever are hiding in a computer game?” the senator asked.
“Sir, I have had personal experiences and contact with these creatures, on both sides,” Sang said. “I know there is no way for me to convince you with hard evidence. But you have to believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you, all right. I believe that you genuinely believe it to be true. See, who I’m most angry at is people here like Mr. Yuri, and your friends, Neil and O’Hara, who think it’s okay to force a star agent to cook inside of a long metal tube for nearly 19 hours a day for several months in a row. It’s no wonder you have lost your faculties! I would go stir-crazy being inside of one of those things for even an hour.”
“Sir—” Sang tried to protest, but she was quickly cut off again
“I am not interested in anything more that you have to say on this matter. However, I am most curious about you, boy,” Franklin said as he pointed to Van. “What do you have to say for yourself? Is there any particular reason that you find it fitting to run around playing X-Files on the government dime?”