Sivlander stretched his hands upwards and the world around him suddenly grew gray. The clouds slowed down, the snow ceased falling, and even the wind was cut out. Two large buttons appeared before Sivlander; one read “Game” and the other read “Settings.” Sivlander touched the Settings button, causing a swarm of other menu options to appear before him. He selected the option “Report Bug” and began to casually write a description of the weird face that had been sticking out of the mountain. Whatever it was, it didn’t belong there, sticking out of the face of a mountain. He mumbled the words as he typed them into the bug report. “Strange face out of mountain; some kind of graphics glitch at Vemor Mountain Ogre Chief Raid.”
After he submitted the bug, he closed the menu and immediately the world around him sprang back to life. The wind picked back up, the snow began again to fall, and he could hear his party arguing over the loot inside of the cave. Sivlander glanced at his experience bar to the side and grinned. If he completed this quest, it would mean yet another leveling up. This was the start of a fantastic day.
Chapter Two
Agent Sang Ngo sat in silence. Her superiors were ignoring her, talking in hushed tones about some kind of game system. Sang had almost been certain that she was going to be fired when she walked into the dimly lit office, but upon seeing Agent Neil and Agent O’Hara, she realized it was going to be a briefing of some kind. This had been a surprise. She wasn’t sure if she welcomed it or not.
Neil and O’Hara paid her no mind as they discussed a holographic display in the center of the room. They were sitting in a circle, with a large white desk in the middle of the room. In the corner was an end table with a bonsai plant sitting on it. The bonsai looked as bored as she was. Such a cramped office for so many people.
“Another glitch report, see?” Neil said, waving to the center of the room. A holographic screen appeared before them in response, showing details of the latest report. Someone named Sivlander had reported something about a bug in that stupid game, Dragon Kings of the New World. While it didn’t appear to be of any interest to Sang, the other two were staring at the details intently.
“This is good,” O’Hara said. “This might finally be the contact we’ve been looking for. And it’s not just him?”
“Nope,” said Neil, waving and causing the holographic display to open up a forum page. “There’s a whole forum about this glitch.”
O’Hara smiled at the response, a girlish grin appearing on her face. “Sounds wonderful.”
Sang wasn’t paying much attention to what they were so interested in. She had more painful things on her mind. The last week had been hell on earth for her, and it was only going to be getting worse.
“Agent Sang!” said a gruff voice as the door opened up. It was her boss, Frederick Yuri. She immediately stood to attention as he entered. The other two agents stood also. After a few moments of hand shaking and words, they all sat down in a circle, watching the center of the holographic display in the office. A picture of a man appeared. Sang winced at the sight. It had been her partner, Alfred Munich.
A week ago, things had been going very well for Sang. She was a member of the CIA’s counterterrorism division and had been working with them non-stop for the last four years. At 26, she had been considered something of a star agent, highly skilled in hacking and countering cyberterrorism. She’d long been a woman who had real promise. Scholarships had been available for her to use, letting her breeze through school. When she’d graduated, she’d had offers from all of the intelligence agencies in America. The world had been in the palm of her hand, and she’d been convinced that she was destined for greatness. That was… until a week ago.
Sang glanced at the picture of the man before her and felt a deep pain well up within her stomach. She looked down at her feet, unable to look at Alfred for more than a few seconds. Flashes came back to her memory, of his calls for help. It was supposed to have been a simple job. There was a small organization in Chicago that had been trading a highly illegal drug known as Cwake with a group of suspected cyberterrorists who had been branded as The Unkown. Her parter, Alfred, had been pushing for an on the ground investigation of the warehouse which The Unknown supposedly worked from, but their superiors hadn’t been convinced that these terrorists were enough of a threat to require dispatched agents. Alfred, being the loud, excitable and perpetually optimistic man that he was, had told Sang of his intentions to check it out himself. Sang was the opposite of Alfred in a lot of ways. She was quiet, focused, and cautious when it came to disobeying orders. After much back and forth, Alfred had said he’d go and investigate it himself. She had run after him.
“Sang, are you paying attention?” Frederick asked as he crossed his arms.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. She felt her heartbeat going a thousand miles a minute as she watched several different pictures float across the display. They were all of the crime scene.
“We need to be clear about something, Agent Sang,” Frederick said. “The only reason you are here is because of the immense value that you bring to this organization. The death of your partner was an absolute tragedy, but it was an avoidable one.”
“Sir, I—”
“I am not here to argue. Our internal investigations committee determined that you were at fault for failing to inform your immediate superiors about Alfred’s choice to investigate a potentially hostile territory alone. By choosing to chase after him instead, you implicated yourself in this matter, as well. I have been in discussion with my superiors all week about your fate. We all agree that it would be a shame for you to be released from service this early into your career, but at the same time, your decision to aid Alfred in an unauthorized investigation is nearly unforgivable.”
Sang winced at that. When she’d found Alfred crouching behind a dumpster outside of The Unknown’s headquarters, she hadn’t convinced him to come back home. On the contrary, he’d managed to convince her to investigate with him. His excitement, his brashness, and his confidence had been enough to motivate her to get involved. All Alfred had needed was some pictures of their operation, she had been convinced. There would be no fighting, no attempted arrests. Just a few pictures of the inside of the warehouse had been all that was needed to make the mission a success.
Sang hadn’t done much in the supposed raid. She’d simply served as the lookout and the getaway driver, keeping an eye out for anyone outside of the warehouse. The Unknown had been extremely cautious with their work. They had no webcams and their cellphones were simplistic, having no capacity to record. This meant that all of Sang’s usual snooping methods were unavailable. So she had waited outside, watching for trouble. Ten minutes later, a few gunshots had rung out and Alfred had come running out of the warehouse, clutching his bloody stomach. Sang had been quick to get him into the car, but by then he’d collapsed. As she’d rushed to the hospital in a panic, he’d slowly died, in agony from the gunshot wound. His cries of pain would follow her for the rest of her life.
“Essentially, Miss Sang, you are in a very precarious position right now,” Frederick continued. Sang glanced at O’Hara and Neil, who both seemed equally unimpressed with her. “Either we release you from this job and perhaps consider pursuing criminal charges agaisnt you, or we find some way to move forward. I am a patient man, Sang. I understand that mistakes can be made, but a mistake like this was far too costly. Alfred was a good man and he deserves to be alive right now. He was somewhat reckless, which was why we partnered him with you. Your skepticism and caution were supposed to anchor him. Instead, you chose to enable him. This will be the last time you get to play action hero, do you understand?”