Aaron and I stared at each other as his customers passed us by. Neither of us showed a hint of emotion.

A kobold snagged a dagger from the wall and raised it. “I’m keepin’ this.” Then tossed some coins on the ground before leaving.

Some of the patrons were reluctant to leave and when they questioned Aaron, he grunted at them.

Raccoon, I mean Riley, invite Aaron to the group? I asked.

I needed to get used to calling him something different if I wanted to keep playing with him. If he didn’t play with me then he would be alone in the home server and even I didn’t want that torturous existence.

He shook his head. Giving you lead so you do it.

His tone was very forceful.

Whenever Raccoon was around someone he felt safe with like Ferret and now Molly he seemed to treat me like crap. It was beginning to piss me off.

I wanted to send Aaron an invite so we could talk while the people left but they cleared out faster than I anticipated so I didn’t send the invite after all.

The moment the door closed behind the last customer Aaron dashed to me and swept me into a hug. He was so short his face ended up in my stomach.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t send everyone messages right away. I just got access to the Qweb a few minutes ago,” I said while placing a hand on his back. A flush of chemicals caused me to choke up. I didn’t want to cry again.

He let go and stepped back. “What the hell happened?”

My stomach groaned making odd sounds. “Can we talk and do business?”

“Sure, sure,” he said as he ushered me to the wooden pawn counter.

I took out the plate mail and placed it and several other items in front of him. I said, “You’ve been doing well.”

“It’s picked up a lot,” he said. “Everyone has been asking about you. It got so bad that I had to start kicking out the fanatics.”

I leaned on the counter and watched as he inspected the gear.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sell these,” he said.

Molly drifted next to me and descended to the ground. “You don’t have connections to the gray market?” She let go of Raccoon and he sat down near her.

Riley, can you send some messages to everyone letting them know I’m okay? I said. Oh, and see if Kevin wants to join us.

Raccoon glanced at Molly and then at me. Is this going to hurt?

Starting a message with someone does hurt, I said.

Molly sat next to Raccoon and he jumped into her lap. I’ll do it after I make a fix for the pain. No guarantees that it’ll stop it for you though.

“Oh, I have connections but I’m working on an order for the Enlightened. If they find out I’m selling their gear to the Grays they might break it off,” Aaron responded.

You could keep all of the messages active and that might be a way for me to avoid the pain, I suggested.

It didn’t change that I’d have to start a message with all of my contacts. Better that I only felt the pain rather than Raccoon. If he was as fast at creating a patch as the last time, it should be done quickly.

I put the armor and swords away. “What about these?” I placed half a dozen leather armor sets on the counter.

“That all?” he asked as he examined them.

“I have seven more sets of similar make with a few spare pauldrons,” I said.

Aaron pointed at the marker’s mark on a pair of greaves. “This is an alternate crafting guild but still associated with the Enlightened. Can't buy these right now either.”

“Shit,” I said.

As I was putting everything away Aaron tapped the counter. “I'd like one of those elven blades though. For my personal collection.”

“How much will you give me for it?” I asked while I leaned on the counter.

Aaron gazed down at his hands. “What happened to you? Where did you go?”

“I'm not supposed to tell any—”

Suddenly a yellow dot appeared in the lower right of my vision.

You can tell him now, Raccoon said.

Wait. I knelt next to Molly and him. How did you activate that while inside the game?

The privacy function was an AR capability but it had never worked in a game before.

Raccoon gestured at me. There was a loophole. People are allowed to stream here so I used that connection and activated privacy through it.

Molly blinked. “You seeing the yellow dot?”

She had asked me.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Yeah,” I said as I stood up again.

Looks like there’s a side effect, we can't access group chat till it's off, Raccoon said.

“I see it too, Aaron said.

Not wanting to lose this opportunity I said, “I'm in a coma. But you can't tell anyone until the doctors say it's okay.”

“I figured something had to go wrong for you to be able to share your emotions and memories like that,” Aaron said.

The privacy light disappeared and the group returned as if we never left.

Technically, your emotions and memories are already shared in the data you send and receive. Kumori found a way to decode that information using your out-of-place Cerebral Nano-Conduit. My guess is your CNC is touching a part of your brain that handles memories and emotions. There are already a lot of studies on brains that should provide more information about emotions and memories. Your doctor sent an updated scan of your body and I'm in the middle of inspecting it to find out why and how to replicate the results, Raccoon explained as he hopped on Molly's hand.

Molly lifted her hands and passed them through Raccoon as if he was the untouchable one rather than she. You're doing all that and playing with me too?

I'm also creating seventy-three different programs to optimize my performance so that I can fix Azerail's pain problem. The two are related and I’m trying to fix a physical problem with software which may have mixed results, he said.

Molly's mouth dropped.

A sudden realization came to me. When I was interacting with my interface while in the Chronofield I didn’t experience any pain while sending messages.

That was because your brain was working too fast for the hardware to react. When you came out of it you passed out and lost a few days—

No, I didn’t. I saw you sitting next to me and everyone was moving fast around my room, I said.

Raccoon paused and then looked at me. Can you try and think of that time again, I’m not getting it in your memories.

I closed my eyes and remembered the experience from this morning. Got it?

Interesting, he said. That helps a lot.

When I opened my eyes he went back to jumping around.

“Who’s the raccoon?” Aaron asked.

“My new friend, Riley,” I said as I pulled out one of the elven blades and set it on the counter.

I trusted Aaron but the less Raccoon had to edit out of our conversations the more he could concentrate on fixing things for us.

Raccoon briefly stopped to wave.

Aaron gave him a nod, ran a hand through his beard, and picked up the sword. “Only the elves have these and they are very careful about letting them get out.”

Molly floated up next to me and sat on the counter. “You're not making this hard on her are you?”

“How much?” I asked.

Raccoon did his “uppies” reach again.

“Oop, sorry,” she said and retrieved him.

Aaron sucked on his bottom lip, scratched his cheek, and ran his fingers along the fluted sections of the blade. “I can give you two hundred gold for it.”

Every time, the same tell. “Six hundred,” I said.

“Okay, that's a big jump,” Molly said.

Not as big as you’d think. He has a tell for when he’s lowballing me, I said while managing to keep a straight face. I was suddenly happy I didn’t invite him to the group.

“Two-fifty,” he said. “You’ve got a second one, sell it and you’ll make just as much.”

I shook my head and glanced at Molly. “How many shops do you think have a contract with the Enlightened?”

Molly swept her hand through Raccoon. “Probably all of them.”

“Three-fifty,” Aaron said.

In a moment of inspiration, I touched the sword and it disappeared. “Five hundred or I sell it on the grey market myself.”

Aaron wringed his fingers. “You don’t have any connections down there.”

“Molly, you know a lot of undead people right?” I swapped my gaze to her. The other day she told me about her Hexed friends and I was banking on the sudden popularity shift in the game to bring them back.

She flew her hand in the air and swept it around till it passed through Raccoon's face. “I have some friends down there.”

“I’ll even let you have the one with the best durability,” I said while bringing both of them out and lying them on the counter.

Aaron squinted at Molly. “You don’t know anyone in the grey market.”

“I know Marcrust, Anthorny, and Kalrak,” she said without looking up from her game with Raccoon.

Raccoon pawed at her arm as it passed by again.

I didn’t know any of those people but Aaron’s eyes went wide when she said ‘Anthorny’ so I knew we had him.

‘Fine!” he said. “How do you always know?”

Then I realized I didn’t have my gloves and boots on. My hands were pale but unmarred so they could have passed off as human.

“Do my hands look human enough?” I asked while turning them in the air. “Or do I need gloves?”

“Maybe if you clean them,” Molly said.

She had a valid point. “Do people still think I'm purple or do they know I've evolved?”

“Oh, they know you've evolved. Koffers been talking about it non-stop on his stream,” she said.

“Shit,” I said. Then I remembered I told him and Fen Li about it publicly in our talks about our collaboration.

How are those algorithms coming along? I asked. Talking to Jasper and Fen Li was at the top of my to-do list.

Raccoon swiped at my cloak. It'll be done when it's done.

Hey, be nice, Molly said.

His little ears folded against his head but he didn't say anything.

“Which one do you like better?” I asked.

He examined both, testing each of one's sounds as he swung them. “This one.”

Its pitch was the lowest of the two.

Aaron flicked a finger through the air and a paper appeared between his fingers. He placed it on the counter in front of me. “All in a lower currency like you like it.”

“They're patching that out next week,” Molly said.

I swiped my hand over the paper adding the money to my inventory. “Are they implementing physical bags and equipment finally?”

DO’s updates didn’t generally move this fast but I’d been waiting too long for something like this to complain.

“Yup,” she said.

I pumped my fist in the air and did a little dance.

Aaron put a hand forward. “Are you abandoning the whole roleplay thing?”

Crap, I thought. He was right, I was being way too lax today.

“Having trouble getting back into the swing of things,” I said.

Suddenly a loud pounding came from the entrance to the shop.

Molly left Raccoon on the counter and sped over to the doors. “Uhm, Inethiel?”

“Hmm?” I said,

She turned to me. “You gotta come see this.”

I lowered my arm and Raccoon climbed onto my shoulder. Aaron followed me to the door and Molly moved out of the way. I peered through the door’s window.

At first, I couldn’t see anything but a shambler's face. When it moved I gasped. The street and beyond were filled with countless undead variants.

“Holy shit,” Aaron said as he raised himself on his tip-toes.

Molly glided up next to my head and put a hand on my shoulder. “Ready to meet your adoring fans?”

***