“The world already is interesting enough without this alien stuff,” Sang replied sharply.
“Maybe to you, but for me? Not so much,” Van said as he stretched. “Well, so we’re alien hunters now. Definitely one of the stranger turns my life has taken.”
“And you’re not really affected by this? Not startled or shaken?” Sang asked.
“Look, first off, it’s just some curiosity from the CIA, right? There’s no hard evidence, no little green men, just some weird bugs. The government is always up to some secretly clandestine kind of stuff, right? Alien-searching has got to be one of them. I always assumed there was some kind of cover-up with Area 51 and all that. So, for all I know, this could be just another kind of alien the government is looking for. Either that or there really isn’t anything... just some kind of code put in by the programmers to screw with hackers. It doesn’t really change what we do. It certainly doesn’t change how I feel about any of this.”
“It’s all a bit much for me,” Sang said, “but I’m in too deep here. I can’t leave this mission without it costing me my career.”
Van grinned. Finally, he was starting to actually hear something real from her. This was the first conversation they’d had where he’d felt like she was being real with him and not just antagonistic or professional.
“Well, hey, don’t worry too much; I mean, what are the chances this is actually real? You know CIA history, right? Remember Project Stargate?”
Sang shook her head, indicating she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Oh, well, back in the 70s, the CIA ran some kind of covert psychic investigation thing. For, like, almost twenty years. It was a colossal failure—they spent a ton of time trying to determine if there was such thing as psychic potential.”
“I guess I never heard about it,” Sang replied.
“Yeah, well, it was a big waste of everyone’s time. Point is, the CIA was interested in looking around, but didn’t find anything of use. No psychic powers were discovered. So, we’re probably gonna be doing the same. I’d be surprised if we actually found anything at all.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Oh, well, believe it or not, a lot of people in my world tend to be a little, uh, paranoid about the government. So, there’s always talks about CIA secrets, ancient history, cryptozoology. It goes with the geek territory. I was really into bigfoot for a few years.”
Sang laughed as Van frowned. “I wasn’t making a joke.”
“Oh, uh, sorry,” Sang said. “So, you don’t think we’ll find anything?”
Van shrugged. “Who knows? All I know is that I was hired-slash-blackmailed into helping you achieve your mission, so if poking around and looking for little green men is the mission, so be it. Doesn’t change what I do, by any means. If anything, it’s almost as if you told me all of this because you’re the one who needs reassurance, not me.”
“That’s a good observation,” Sang said, trying to put on a stern face. “But I’m fine. I just needed somone else to hear this.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Van said. All of his previous frustration and tension with her was beginning to erode as he saw how concerned she had really been about the job she was doing. To him, this whole CIA ploy was typical government stuff, but to her, it was an entirely different kind of thinking. But it was nice that she actually trusted him enough to talk to him, and he could feel himself growing a little more at ease with her. Who knew... maybe after all of this, they’d be friends?
Chapter Thirteen
“You idiot!” Sang screamed as she kicked Van over and over again. They were back in the town of Hearthborne, where they had first started before the Sheriff’s quest. Things had been going smoothly since they’d both logged back into the game. But... they had travelled back to the town where the Dwarf NPC was located, only to find out that since they officially hadn’t completed the quest, he wasn’t available. It was a frustrating situation, and one that had been brought on by the fact that Van had made the decision to exit the quest once he figured it was over.
“Ouch—hey, stop!” he protested as he lay on the ground, curled up in a ball. Sang didn’t relent from swiftly kicking him over and over again.
“Look! You told me you knew things would be fine! You told me to click exit!”
“I said it would probably be fine! Doesn’t the word ‘probably’ mean anything to you?” Van demanded.
Sang shook her head. “We need to get to that mountain! We wasted almost two whole days on that quest and you completely undid all of it! You idiot!”
“Look, I get that you’re upset, but you gotta realize something. That glitch messed up the whole quest anyway, so it’s not my fault. Unless you wanted to go back and fight the sheriff without a full party, there wasn’t anything we could have done anyway,” Van said as he wheezed, trying to stand back up.
“Well, maybe,” Sang said, “but you’ve no right to tell me that everything will be fine when you’re not sure that’s the case.”
“Look, I didn’t know!” Van said. His eyes darted to the left as he stood up and he held up his hand. “Wait!” he said.
“What?” Sang asked as she turned around to see a small group of adventurers nearby. They were armed to the teeth and looked extremely high level. Sang could see they were all Level 75, and looked like they would be trouble in a fight.
“That’s my old adventuring party! They’re gonna be able to give me a map!” Van cried out triumphantly as he leapt up.
“We’re undercover, remember? We can’t just tell them who you are,” Sang said. “And, a map to where?”
“Well, now that we’re on the same page, I know you want glitches, so I know of jut the place! The only problem is that getting there is a royal pain without a map because of how far away it is.”
“What? We need to investigate the mountain for—”
“For what? A tiny glitch? Look, this place I’m talking about, it’s been one of the buggiest places in the entire game for almost two months now. Everyone’s always yammering about how it’s messed up, and Draco has actually physically shut down access to the area in order to prevent players from poking around. But why hide it rather than fix it, right, if there’s not something more going on? All we should do is head over there and you can use your hacking magic to get us into a restricted area!”
Sang nodded, feeling a little surge of excitement leap up inside of her. She had taken a gamble by bringing Van into the know about the entire affair, but it seemed to energize him. His enthusiasm was already paying off in spades. “Perfect,” she said, “so, if we get a map, we can go to this area?”
“Hopefully!” Van said, leaping up and grabbing his bagpipes. “And I know I’m undercover, so just leave it to me.” With that, he scampered up to the party of six that was busy arguing. Sang slowly followed after him, hoping there wasn’t going to be any kind of trouble or singing.
“Hark!” Van said as he tumbled in front of them—it had looked as if he were trying to do a somersault, but wasn’t very graceful about it. “Behold, I am Semimodo! Jester to the stars!”
“Be gone, foul jester!” said one of the players. His name read Abigar the Bold and he was a Level 75 barbarian.
“But, pray tell, don’t you wish to hear a ballad? Boost your stats for a whole 24 hours!” Van said.
“Stat boost? What’s your angle?” asked one of the shorter players, a wizard named Philipson.
“No angle! I just wish to get to the kingdom of Verrata, but lack a map! If you show me the map, I’ll play my song!” Van said cheerfully.