TJ didn’t have time to feel annoyed that Beth had given him a new nickname, one that he’d heard some of his developers whispering to each other out in his kitchen; he was more concerned that they couldn’t get her to wake up.
He’d dismissed the doctor, telling her that he’d call if he needed her, and turned his trouble-shooting to the elite team of programmers, developers, and designers he’d assembled to help him trouble-shoot.
He’d had them each sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, so they wouldn’t go blabbing to the media that his technology had taken one of its beta-testers captive. TJ couldn’t afford for Insomnia Online to get the bad press.
“Should we shut down some of the other beta testing locations?” Gary asked, his judgemental eyebrow raised and his hands tucked into his pockets in a false show of ease.
“No. Just don’t advance them to the injection. We need to continue finding suitable candidates so we can figure out their common threads.”
Like why TJ was 96% compatible but hadn’t been trapped inside the game. Somewhere in that 4% was a mystery to be solved, discovered, and fixed.
He typed out a text to Candace, his sister. She loathed him, but would do anything if he paid her enough.
TJ: I need your help with a coma patient. She’s important to me.
Candace: How important?
TJ: I’ll do anything.
Candace: Send me the address, I’ll be right there.
He did. That was another thing about his sister, she didn’t ask why he had a coma patient in his penthouse, she just came.
Candace: You owe me, though.
Candace arrived less than an hour later, her pixie-like features accentuated by her dark hair pulled into a ponytail.
TJ’s living room had been turned into an office for the six men hard at work. Each of their heads swiveled toward her as she sashayed across the marble floor toward him, a glower firmly in place.
TJ led her to the bedroom, where Beth and Brian were.
Candace stopped between the two tanks. “These are the robots that can do almost anything the human body needs?” Her eyes darkened as she turned on him. She’d been telling him since they were in prototype that they needed to be marketed to the medical field, her area of expertise.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
TJ swallowed, giving her a hard look. Now was not the time to get into another argument about the micro-bots. “Yeah.”
Candace turned toward Beth’s tank. “She’s beautiful.” Candace’s fingers touched Beth’s chin, her face being the only exposed part of her in the micro-bot tank.
“She is,” TJ agreed.
“Fill me in then.” Candace kicked off her high heels and slid into the second tank, looking up at the screen. “What movie is this?” she asked.
Brian cleared his throat and gave TJ an uncomfortable look.
TJ said, “This is the game. What you’re seeing is through Beth’s point of view. She’s stuck in the game, and we can’t figure out how to get her out.”
Beth screamed TJ’s name, the sound raising the hairs on his arms.
“So, she’s stuck in a zombie game, currently underneath a dock, shivering with cold as zombies try to break through the wood?”
“Basically.” TJ looked at the screen. He wasn’t actually sure the zombies could break through the dock. They may have made that one a permanent structure. At least for her sake, he hoped they had.
Night had fallen, and they were just getting glimpses by the light of the full moon. A swarm of zombies had amassed, some in bird form, some dogs, and about two-dozen human ones.
“This is creepy AF,” Candace said. “People want to dream about this? I’d probably wake up and forget which was fantasy and which was reality.”
That was part of TJ’s plan, though. He wanted people to forget. Wanted them to live in his games. He had others in the development stage too. Perhaps a less dangerous game, a slice of life, would have been better. He had a game he called Life. People could buy a home, build a life, get married. Everything. They could do it all, and his micro-bots would take care of their physical needs. They’d only need to wake up to eat. Even then, though, he’d tried to program some sort of feeding system, but hadn’t figured it out.
“How long has she been out?” Candace asked.
“Almost an entire day,” Brian answered.
“So she’ll need IV fluids. And maybe a feeding tube.” Candace gave him a dirty look. “This won’t be easy stuff to get, and I could be kicked out of school and blocked from receiving my license.”
He knew it was true, but if they couldn’t figure out how to get Beth out of the game, there would be major issues. Major.
“Do these bot things monitor her blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate, and all that?”
TJ looked to Brian, who pressed a few buttons and the stats appeared on the screen overtop of the live-stream of Beth’s game.
“Her temperature is low. Can you warm her up?”
“Of course. They’re synced with the game right now, if she’s cold in the game, they’re programmed to make her cold in real life.” TJ smiled, proud of that little invention.
“If the bots are programmed to make the game feel real, perhaps you should consider manually controlling them so that she doesn’t get hypothermia from being in that lake.”
TJ’s eyes widened as he considered giving Beth, or any of his users, hypothermia. That was definitely not his intent. He looked at Brian, who obviously read TJ’s panicked expression.
“I’ll get right on it.”
Candace climbed gracefully out of the tank. “I’ll make some phone calls. How much are you willing to spend?”
“Whatever it takes.”
She shook her head with a small eye roll.
“And Candace. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”