“What?” Van demanded. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“It’s true, it’s true. Now, look... I’ve proven myself pretty well to these guys and they’ve given me plenty of power. I’m actually the active manager of this entire city. I have the power of police, the authority to deputize and even hire people if I want to. Of course, anyone I hire has to be cleared by Draco, but the good news is that you’re already in the clear,” Trefor said.
Van felt his heart rate increase again. He knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“But… there’s a problem,” Trefor continued. “For you to be gallivanting around with some kind of troublemaker’s not so great. The good news is, if you were to share everything that you knew with me, all of the details about who she is, her goals, her activities... well, then it just looks like you were my undercover man the whole time. Then you go from being an ugly-looking bard back to being Sivlander, but now as a pro gamer. What do you say? Sounds like everyone wins to me.”
“Uh, yeah, yeah, it does,” Van said hoarsely. He had no idea what to do next. This was extremely troublesome. On one hand, it wasn’t a bad idea, getting a job working for Draco, but on the other, he knew there was no way in hell he would ever betray his friend. He and Sang had grown close enough for him to legitimately care about her, and there was nothing that would change that. Also, it was probably treason to disclose the CIA’s covert operations, and then he’d be dragged out into the back of the woods and shot. Probably by O’Hara.
“You seem conflicted,” Trefor said, nodding understandingly. “I get it, I get it. You’re probably pals with her, probably been doing a lot of stuff together. Maybe you’re even sweet on her—whatever. But you’ve got to ask yourself this question: is your entire future worth risking for one girl? Because, man, I gotta tell you, every single day I wake up in my pod, attended by my own personal assistant. I get out, walk around my new house, and I get to eat real food. No more of that gamer chow crap. I eat steak now. You know how good steak is when you can afford it every day? It’s the best thing you’ll ever eat.”
Van shrugged. He was really in trouble here, and he had no idea what to do. “Yeah, of course, of course. But… look, Trefor, I’m gonna level with you. I’m not particularly in a place where I can snitch on her. I mean, if you’re gonna have to kill me, fine, but the reality is, she’s a good friend of mine and I won’t turn my back on her. I’d never do anything like that to you or the crew, and that means I morally can’t betray her either.”
Trefor nodded after a moment’s thought. “Good man, good man. Makes sense. Well, let’s forget about it then... water under the bridge?”
“Great. I’m glad you understand,” Van said.
“Of course. But, still, I have to insist that you at least meet the boss man. He’s the guy in charge of selecting everyone, and he’d love to meet you.”
“Oh, I don’t know if that’s necessary,” Van said.
“Man, I’ll level with you,” Trefor said, “Draco knows there’s a bard and a ranger sneaking around. They don’t know you’re that bard. So, I’ll cut you a deal. We meet up with the boss, he evaluates you, and if he’s good to go and he hires you, you kick half of your signing bonus to me. Sound good? You win, I win, Draco wins. Everyone’s good to go.”
Van glanced at the massive sword hanging from Trefor’s side and then back at the paladin’s face. He shrugged. He just needed to buy time until the log-out option was back on, or until Sang contacted him. “Sure, okay, fine. I’ll listen to the pitch. But there’s no way I’m giving you half of that bonus. I’ll throw you like a few thousand, minimum.”
“Ha, we’ll figure it out after you get the offer,” Trefor said. “Now come on—let’s fly out there to meet him.”
“Fly?” Van repeated. Trefor sharply whistled, causing a massive yellow Dragon to arrive on the scene. It landed with a heavy thump right before them.
“Check it out!” Trefor said, pointing to the Dragon. “Her name is Kilsa.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the Dragon said. She moved her head up and down, inspecting Van. “You seem nervous. Relax, I don’t bite.”
Van cocked his head. That was a strange and very responsive piece of dialogue for a NPC.
“Hop on!” Trefor said as he saddled up on the Dragon’s back. “Plenty of room back here.”
“Great,” Van said, climbing atop the Dragon and holding on to the reins tightly. He felt a considerable amount of fear as the Dragon began to take off, though. He knew that, on some level, this wasn’t going to end well at all.
Chapter Twenty
Sang opened one eye, but couldn’t see much. There was the steady beeping of a machine next to her, though, and she realized that she was lying on her back in a hospital bed. Her vision slowly came back to her as she opened her eyes and blinked a few times.
“There’s our girl!” Neil said as he leaned over and gently brushed her hair aside. “We were worried you were dead.”
“D-dead?” Sang coughed out—her mouth was incredibly dry.
“Yeah, you went into some kind of intense shock while you were in the game. Started convulsing. Doc said your body wasn’t handling something properly. So we yanked you out, but that didn’t help. So... yeah, we just kind of threw you in the medical room, pumped you full of stimulants, and hoped it would work. Guess it did,” Neil said as he sat down in the chair across from her.
“Where’s Van?” she whispered, her memory slowly coming back to her.
“Moron’s still stuck in the tube. We can’t message him either. Won’t respond, or can’t. Not dead, though. No heart issues or anything. Just lying there like an idiot, oblivious. We can’t pull him out, either... the doctor said there’s some kind of, I dunno, brainwave interference or whatever. Like, if we pull him out, there’s some kind of feedback system that will cause him to go into shock also. Doc said that, for some reason, the experimental biofeedback systems on the pods were activated, and Van’s was a little too plugged in.”
“Too plugged in?” Sang said. “That’s weird... I haven’t heard of that.”
“Yeah, well, apparently, you rip the cord out there, you kill him. O’Hara wanted to test that theory, but the doctor said no. Too bad; might have been interesting to see the results.”
“The message!” Sang cried, sitting up as she remembered the intense sensations of information crashing into her mind. Numbers, symbols, and pictures all came flooding back to her. “I got a message!”
“What? What are you talking about?” Neil asked. “We lost all communication and monitoring with you two when you guys went into that cave. What happened?”
“I contacted them, Neil. I contacted the aliens.”
“What? How?” Neil asked, suddenly standing up and calling into his radio, “O’Hara, get in here!”
“I don’t know. We went into that cave and there was some kind of a message. It was Morse code; I started interacting with it, and then… then I started getting some kind of feedback in my haptic system. Like a radio wave or something. I could hear a voice, but… it wasn’t human.”
“Oh, baby, this is the jackpot!” Neil said. “O’Hara, get in here!”
“Stop yelling, I’m here,” O’Hara said as she walked in.
“Sang found something. Made contact.”
“It was a message, but it’s encrypted. Get me a pen, paper. I can write it down,” Sang said.
Neil scrambled to give her a notepad that he had been working out of earlier. She grabbed it and began to scribble out all of the information that she’d been given. There were symbols and codes that she didn’t quite understand, but she knew they had been transmitted to her on purpose. The voice had been real—she knew it. It wasn’t just part of the game... it had been real.