We pushed forward as the small group of people stared at us. There were only five, and though I'd been surrounded by dozens only moments ago, this felt different. Jakson was right. Two of them were from Infinite Diffusion. I'd dedicated a massive portion of my life to their game, so I felt more than a little starstruck.
Dr. Stevens stood at the head of the group and next to him were two men in suits. They weren’t as intimidating as the ones in the car but there was still an air of authority about them. Their profiles seemed normal, but each lacked a profession. One's name was Gregory Deen and the other was Johnathan Reedus.
Gregory had dark brown hair, blue eyes, and an oval face. He was taller than Jonathan but not by much.
Jonathan on the other hand had black hair and brown eyes. He had a kind face, one you wouldn't mind looking at while having a long conversation.
The two developers from DO were named Jason Kendrick and Florence Ipsum. I’d heard of Jason before because he tended to do many of the developer VRVs on the Qweb. Florence's profile stated they were a hardware integration specialist. Florence was also non-binary.
Jason had a classic developer's unkempt beard and hair combo. It was golden blond like the rest of his hair. His eyes were brown.
Florence had long brown hair, brown eyes, and seemed to prefer feminine apparel. Their face was also kind but had a closed-off demeanor.
My parents were probably still inside.
As we strode up, Dr. Stevens spun on his heel. “Hello, Az.”
The others nodded at me and then turned to Kevin.
“So what's going on?” I asked.
One of the men in suits turned to Kevin and spoke. “Young man, would you mind heading home.”
“Don’t be rude, Gregory,” Autumn said as she walked through our portal. “You know the boy's situation.”
I didn’t know his situation.
“He’s the one we spoke about?” Gregory asked.
Autumn nodded. “He is.”
“Well, I’m glad your mom is feeling better,” he said to Kevin.
Kevin smiled. “Thank you.”
“What’s so urgent?” I asked.
Dr. Stevens stepped toward me. “Before we get into that, I want to apologize.”
“Apologize for what?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “Close to half of the sensors in the upper region of the HSC have been operating at a diminished capacity.”
“Does that mean my scans from earlier today are different than usual?” I asked.
“Yes.”
That made sense. All those months of increased pain but no change in my scans felt as if I were banging my head against a wall. My implant differed from other people's. The wires connecting it to portions of my brain were connected in an unusual way. We’d been monitoring it for most of my life but the pain amplified as time went on.
Over the past few months, we hadn't been able to do anything to help alleviate my suffering, so finding out it was a hardware error was really good news.
Dissolving an implant was much harder than it was for the nanobots to create one. The risks were far greater and my parents weren't willing to put my life in danger for a little pain. They, of course, didn't know how painful it could be.
“So what's that mean for Azerail?” Autumn asked.
Dr. Stevens stepped back, joining the group again. “It means we can extend her Cerebral Nano-Conduit again.”
“What's that mean?” Kevin asked.
Dr. Stevens sighed. “It means we can manually have her nanobots extend her CNC so it's not putting pressure on her brain anymore.”
“Whoa, wait,” Florence interjected. “Do you have a record of the parts of the brain in contact with the CNC?”
Loosening up the CNC was the approach we'd been taking my entire life. Since it wasn't in an optimal position as my brain grew, we had to extend it.
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Stevens said.
Florence pinched the air. “Here are our readings.” They gestured toward Dr. Stevens. Which meant they sent a file to him.
“Half of this looks like gibberish. Did you have your Zix look at it?” Dr. Stevens asked.
“I did and that's what came back,” Florence said.
“Just send everything you have to me and I'll give it to the Remnant later today,” I suggested. “It's helped me in the past.”
“Congratulations by the way,” Jason said to me.
I glanced at him and put my head down.
“You're the first shambler to unlock the Wight evolution,” he said. “We’re also sorry about any distress that might have occurred because of last night's event.”
“The Enlightened will pay for what they have done to my people.” I paused for dramatic effect. “This I swear.”
A slight smile crept at the edges of Jason’s mouth.
“Okay, none of that,” Autumn said.
“Who are they?” I gestured to Gregory and Jonathan.
Gregory gestured at us. “We’re just here to observe.”
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“Then why did you want Kevin to leave?” I asked.
Gregory put his hands up but it was Autumn who answered, “It is new technology Azerail. Everyone wants to know how it works.”
The fact that the VRV had over a billion views proved that much.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Kevin opened one of his boxes, pulled out a burger, and started eating it.
“The Cities Remnant idea is a good one,” Florence said.
Though I’d only suggested it to Dr. Stevens today I’d been planning to talk to Stephanie about it for a while.
“We could try giving all of the data to her Zix and see what comes of that?” Jonathan suggested.
Would you be able to decipher the data we give you, Zix?
Zix slipped between my legs, causing them to tingle, and sat. I’m an Omni modal LLM and should be able to understand everything you show me.
“If we're going to do that we should probably collect as much new data as we can from that game of yours. Get her to share her thoughts and emotions deliberately,” Gregory said.
“Can’t,” I said.
Autumn asked, “Why not?”
“I can’t use Control Undead anymore. It evolved with my character and my stats are too low to use it now,” I said.
Florence swiped through the air a few times. “You don’t need to worry about that. We’ll duplicate your character, toss it into a test server and give you some gear to buff your concentration.”
“Sounds like we have a plan!” Jason said.
I was down to play around in a test server for a while. “Where are we going to test it at?”
“If Mrs. Edwards doesn’t mind, we could use her sphere?”
Autumn waved her hands in front of her. “No swinging and jumping around in my house.”
“No need for any of that. We just need a place to settle down. We'll be using VR to connect,” Florence said.
Autumn put her hands on her hips. “How many of you need to lie down?”
I leaned in close to Kevin and whispered, “What percent are your implants at?”
“Percent?” he asked, cheeks full of burger.
“Yeah, check your settings,” I said.
It took me a moment to realize Kevin's hands were full. He had finished the second burger and was on his last one.
“Probably Azerail, Jason, and myself,” Florence said.
“Kevin too!” I said.
Dr. Stevens raised a hand. “I wouldn't mind having a look. Azerail, speaks pretty highly of your game.”
Jason smiled.
“Are you two going to join them?” Autumn asked Gregory and Johnathan.
Gregory turned to Johnathan. “One of us should observe. You're into this type of thing aren't you?”
“Yes sir,” Johnathan said.
I hadn't done a group VR session since choosing school. This was going to be interesting.
Autumn beckoned for us to join her as she went inside. Everyone followed her.
“We don't have to lie down, you know. We can use a couch or lean against a wall,” Florence said.
Our nanobots would reinforce our bodies while we sat. Similar to how they did at the doctor's office. “We can use my room, Kevin.”
“The door stays open,” Autumn warned.
“You can literally look through my eyes any time you want, Mom!” I said.
Kevin's eyes widened. “Wait, she can?”
“Yeah, your mom practically watched us all day. You didn’t hear me tell her to watch when I looked at your eye?” I said.
His mouth dropped. “I thought you were just being weird and talking to yourself or Dr. Stevens.”
“Nope, I still want to show you what I saw,” I said.
“Is she watching us now?” Kevin whispered.
Ever since Kevin's implants were starting to form I hadn't seen her watching. “Nope, but she's probably tracking you.”
Kevin took a bite from his burger and his eyes darted back and forth.
“Don't worry about it,” I whispered. “Lots of students watch me while I go to school. We call them gazers.”
Florence stepped up next to me and tapped my shoulder. “Here's the download.”
A notification popped up with a link to download the test server. I started the download.
Florence then tapped Kevin's shoulder and repeated themselves.
“Kevin doesn't have a character,” I said.
Florence smiled. “Don't worry everyone will get a shambler character that doesn't have one yet.”
Florence repeated the process with the rest of the people in the room who were joining us.
“You got the notification right?” I asked Kevin.
He nodded. “It's downloading.”
“Good,” I said.
My hands began to shake and then stopped. The nanobots had recognized the extra wave of dopamine and controlled it. The excited feeling was still there but it was contained so it didn't interrupt my physical state.
I was nervous enough I hadn't seen Kevin set his boxes on the ground. He’d finished all of the burgers.
“How long will the download take?” Kevin asked.
Florence and Jason were the first to take a seat. Florence slashed their fingers through the air with expert speed.
Though I liked the tactile feeling of pressing buttons I much preferred talking with Zix to get things done. “It shouldn’t be very long. If you long press on it, it should tell you the exact ETA.”
Gregory joined the other two on the couch and Johnathan sat on our only lounge chair. It was plush with extremely soft fabric. When Jennifer wasn’t using it I did.
“Wanna see my room?” I asked Kevin.
He smiled. “Sure.”
I realized that keeping the door open was probably going to be a good idea anyway since I needed to hear Florence tell us to start the game up.
“Azerail,” Autumn said.
“Mom?”
“Do you have anything you want to clean up before you let him in?” she asked.
My heart skipped a beat before I realized I hadn’t picked up my clothes from this morning. “I’ll give it a look.”
When I glanced at Kevin, he stood there with a stupid grin on his face.
I kicked him in the shin for being so smug and dashed into my room, closing the door behind me.
It was dark, too dark.
“Lights,” I said.
Brief strobes of light flashed through my room, making it hard to see anything.
Flash.
My bed blinked into existence briefly and then disappeared. Something was very wrong. A deep sense of unease took over and my pulse pounded in my ears.
Flash.
The room lit up longer this time. Thick spiderwebs covered the vast majority of my room. I caught a glimpse of posters and clothes dangling from the silk strands. Then darkness enveloped my vision.
Chiisana shanburā, yakusoku shita yo ne?
Flash.
It was Kumo asking about my promise. The days not over yet Kumo!
A dim beam of luminescence focused on the floor in front of my bed. The screenshots I’d taken over the years were scattered everywhere. Then nothingness.
Flash.
Another beam appeared but this time it was brighter, reflecting off the ground and gave contrast to the webwork on the walls. They seemed to be moving, but as I took a step forward to get a better look, thousands of tiny spiders inched their way along the strands.
What the hell? I thought as the darkness consumed me again.
Flash.
Everything looked exactly the same as it had a moment ago.
My breathing increased.
A virtual poster twitched and slid to the center of the room. Another did the same, and then all of them moved at once, making a pile like they had yesterday. Then darkness.
Flash.
A giant spider leg came at me faster than I could react. It pierced through my leg and slammed into the floor.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. Then the pain came and I screamed.
***