As she dreamt, she realized how futile it was for her to even bother to understand the words. She was dying, trapped in a tube that was going to become her coffin. Why care? Why care about anything except for the fact that Van would hopefully be free?
“Wake up!” Trefor said sharply, shoving Sang. This caused her to wake up with a start, gasping a little as she realized that they were atop some massive platform in the sky.
“Where… where am I?” she asked as she stood and shook her head, trying to get the grogginess out of her mind. She was feeling dizzy and weak, but at least she could stand.
“You’re at one of our observation facilities,” Trefor replied. The Dragon at his side hissed and shrieked. “Calm yourself—we’re going, we’re going,” he said as he took Sang by the arm roughly and began to pull her toward the giant, windowless building. It didn’t look anything like the video game world that she had become used to.
“Well, I’m here. Are you going to let Van go now?” Sang asked.
“I just released his log-out credentials; he’s free,” Trefor said. “See? I told you I’m a man of my word.”
Sang glanced at her online display. Van’s player profile icon still said ONLINE. It could mean one of two things... either Trefor was lying to her, or Van had chosen to stay behind and find a way to help her. She hoped that he wasn’t trying anything clever. She sent a quick message to O’Hara, instructing them to unplug Van as soon as it was safe. She didn’t want to tell her friend that she was going to be dead, one way or the other, but knew it would be foolish for Van to risk his life to try and save a dead woman. The only way she’d had a chance of convincing him to allow her go with Trefor had been to tell Van to figure out a clever plan to rescue her, so she had. Maybe Sivlander would come in to rescue her, but she doubted it. Draco wasn’t stupid, and Trefor was no doubt sending regular reports. Van wouldn’t have a chance of logging in to his old character.
The doors to the building slid open and Sang could see thousands of floating desks within. It was just like Van had described it.
“Now then, my employers are very interested in what you have in your head,” Trefor said, sharply turning to face her. “We know you made contact. We want to know everything that you’ve learned. Now, there’s two ways you can do this. You may, if you so choose, voluntarily tell them everything that you know. That will be painless and safe. Or… or you can try to lie to us; you can try to cheat us and then we will have to use extraction methods that are far more… horrific, in every way.”
“Hahahaha,” Sang weakly laughed. “You’re such an idiot, you know that? Trefor, right? Or should I say, Trever Williams? 24-year-old American who lives in the Bronx?”
Trefor’s eyes narrowed. “H-how do you know that?”
Sang grinned. “You really wanna know who I am? I’m an agent working for the CIA. We’ve been investigating this game. Do you know what that means? That means that I have my own people. My people who found your address and are on their way to your house right now, armed and ready to rip you out of that tube. We might not be able to prove anything in a court of law, of course, because this is all kind of silly, but fortunately, the CIA doesn’t really specialize in doing things legally.”
Trefor looked visibly uncomfortable, and he took a step back from Sang. “You’re making that up.”
“Oh, sure I am, sure I am. Ha. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been an exceptionally skilled hacker in this game, changing just about anything that I don’t like. What, do you think that I work for some corporation? Some other game company trying to spy on you? No, sir. I’m working for the CIA and you’re in a ton of trouble.”
Trefor glanced around. “No matter... uh, no matter,” he said, his face clearly panic stricken from the news that he had been kidnapping a CIA woman. “Draco has no time for such games. My contact should be here soon. I’ll hand you off to the Messenger and then they will get everything they need.”
“Why are you doing this?” Sang asked, coughing a little. “Money? Fame? None of that will do you any good when you’re tied up in one of our basements being waterboarded.”
“You can’t do that! I’m an American citizen!” Trefor shouted.
Sang grinned, “Oh right, right. I forgot the CIA definitely doesn’t torture citizens at all.”
Trefor backhanded her. “Ah!” she gasped as she felt blood rush into her mouth. The steel glove that he had been wearing had seriously busted her face.
“Shut the hell up. My orders are to bring you to the Messenger and wait. You’re not going to make me freak out. I’m not going to let you trick me.”
“I’m not trying to trick you at all,” Sang said. “I’m just giving you a chance, right here and right now. If you let me log out before the CIA finds you, I’ll call them off.”
“Yeah, right,” Trefor said, folding his arms.
“Your loss,” Sang said. In reality, she had no idea how close her team was to actually finding Trefor in meat space, but she hoped against hope that they would find him... and quickly. “You’re going to love what my buddy O’Hara can do with nothing more than a car battery and some jumper cables.”
“Enough!” Trefor said, striking her in the side of her head again with his fist. The blow was painful enough that she lost her balance, falling over. She hit the ground with a thump and felt her senses become overloaded by the pain. Her eyes began to close then, and she felt herself slip into darkness once again. This time, however, she was chuckling. Chuckling because Trefor was most likely going to be delivering a dead body to the Messenger.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Van stared at the message. He reread it for the fourth time. It was from Agent Neil. Hey—listen, pal. You gotta do us a solid here. Sang’s not gonna make it for too much longer in this tube. We’re close to finding Trefor in real life, but Sang’s had her ability to log out completely revoked. You gotta grab her and pull her out of the restricted area. We’ve got a few people here who can get you both out the moment she leaves, okay? Just pull her out by any means necessary. Sang’s probably told you there’s a chance you could die in real life due to the biofeedback system, but that’s a risk you need to be willing to take. Bring our girl back alive and you’ll have a hefty reward waiting for you. If you log out and leave her behind, you might get into a car accident on the way home. The kind that involves you getting shot in the back of the head multiple times. Got it? She’s in this mess because of you. You’ve got maybe 12 hours before she dies due to what the doctors are telling us is Onset Biofeedback Overstimulus; apparently it’s some kind of brain thing that’s gonna cause her central nervous system to shut down. So, get in there, save her, and get out. Oh, and we checked Sivlander, and uh…. he’s been deleted, so that’s not a rescue option. Sorry.
Sivlander was gone? After years and years of hard work, in a single moment, his favorite character was gone. Van couldn’t believe his eyes. He had worked so hard to make Sivlander one of the best characters in the game world, had been good enough to have gone pro, and now… now Draco had deleted their only real chance at getting out of this world alive.
Without Sivlander, Van knew that any chance he’d had of kicking down the door, killing a bunch of guards, and grabbing her from Trefor was gone. Even getting to the platform would be nearly impossible at this point. He felt his heart sink into his stomach as he sat down to contemplate the situation. There was no hope. He had no chance of rescuing Sang and she was going to die. Draco was going to win this thing and… and he’d lose the only real friend he’d ever had, who’d known him both as a gamer and a character. He felt a sorrow begin to well up within him as he realized the sheer helplessness of his situation. What could he do? He was just a crappy bard with no skills that would get him even close to overcoming Trefor. He could look for friends and get people to rally around him, but that would take too long. And besides... he didn’t have the money to shell out to convince people to join him in his cause.