"Diving again?”
He looked up. It was one of those rare quiet moments on the production floor, when shifts for Archeonae Online's support teams switched over. “Hey Cass. Yeah, gotta do another walkabout in-game.” The harsh glare from the monitors make him look much older than his twenty-six years. That, and a distinct lack of sleep. He brushed a lock of hair aside as he went over his in-game equipment one more time. Sure, he could rummage through it once he hit the game-world, but doing it here saved a bit of time - and let him focus on the inevitable flood of private messages from players once they realized he was logged on. “Temps are escalating a couple of reports along the Arruz Delta section - looks like the Madmen and the Solar Knights are having another free-for-all again.”
“Ugh, guild fights.” She frowned and leaned over his console. “That's the second time this month. Didn't they have that arbitrated already?”
The scent of strawberries and watermelons wafted into his nose. Figures, he thought. Probably had a date with Johnson over at at CustRep after work. “Tried.” It was an understatement, with both guild leaders reportedly in a fistfight the last time they met each other in the flesh. Now they just flamed each other in the forums, although there were rumors of the Madmen firing off a DDOS attack at key Knight members the other day. “Unfortunately, no one wants to get involved. Alec in Community Management,” he looked up at her with a wry grin, “thinks he has to call them in for a little pep talk.”
She chuckled and stood. “Good luck with that. Pulling in the heavy arms on your Titanframe huh?” Grinning, she ran her finger over the console's screens. “Microfusion chain cannons, plasma hammerfists, grav-wave pulse shields ... looks like you're planning to start the next big war. Hope you got the signoffs on that, Mr. Senior Operations Lead.”
“Heh, you'd be surprised what a bottle of whiskey at a party can do.” He smiled briefly at the memory, and the subsequent 'allowances' he had managed to squirrel away as a result. “Heck, it would be,” his voice dropping in pitch to make a poor imitation of their CEO, “a gosh darn shame if we can't entertain the huddled masses with the power of vir-tu-al technology, by golly! So let's give them paying VR varmints a good ol' time, booyah!”
They laughed at that for a good bit before managing to recover. “Oh, man.” Cass shook her head and looked at him. “Don't quit your day job, dear leader. And don't get caught by HR with that speech - they'd sue for copyright infringement.” She checked her appearance one more time, then turned. “Well, got to go. Johnson's promised me a night of mind-blowing...”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Spare me, Cass. Just have fun, and remember that we're running the second pre-tournament leg tomorrow at 8 AM sharp. So no hard liquor, eh?”
“Ugh, you are such a party pooper.” She turned and winked, knowing that her curvy backside and waist-length red hair left very little to the imagination. “Later, great old one.”
He watched her leave before doing one more long stretch. Never hurt to get limber before a dive, after all. “Equipment's solid, power's stable...” Fingers danced as he finished on the preparations and settled on a spawn point some distance from the site he'd have to investigate. He'd probably have to cloak coming in, do a low buzz, maybe fire off some rounds and 'accidentally' hit some poor schmucks on the way in. Served them right for fighting in a high-risk PvP area, and it would probably grab their attention right off the bat. “Alright, Browning, I'm set here. Warm it up, please.”
A voice replied in a deep basso tone. “All systems are green, Game Master Charon.” Some people wondered why he programmed his companion oversight AI with a tone that sounded like the depths of the earth itself, but he found it useful in keeping people on their toes. “You are cleared for login.”
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One of these days, he mused, they'd probably have the AI companions address their partners by their real names. Till then, they'd continue to call them by their in-game tags. He didn't mind, personally - it reminded people of the border between work and personal lives. He laid himself into the game pod and waited for it to fill with oxy-fluid before starting the login sequence. The cool sensation of metal touching his nape indicated that the neural connection was established, and all it would take was his verbal command.
“Alright, Browning. Take me in and commence dive.”
The world turned black.
---
One of the hassles in administering to online virtual MMOs was the first five minutes after login. Savvy players could check their messages and see that a game master had logged in. System notifications could pile up, especially with noisy players engaged in a word war over server-wide chat. But arguably the worst issue that he hoped to never encounter was a blinding headache as soon as the virtual world asserted itself. That meant trouble. It could be a thousand things, from minor server lag to poorly timed spawn events - or even major bugs caused by poorly anticipated code. There was no solution for it other than letting it pass and hoping that it would go over quickly. In the meantime, you had to grin and bear with it. They even had a term for it, “login aches”. It sounded like a joke, up till the mandatory health check that manglement insisted people have lest someone have a brain hemorrhage on duty. Those were never fun.
This time, though, his worst fears came true.
He woke in a world of intense pain. It was everywhere - his whole body was on fire, albeit momentarily. As soon as it faded, his thoughts quickly triggered subroutine checks to assess the damage. What the hell was that? Browning should have alerted me to any issues. Looking around, he realized that he was nowhere near the spawn point he had set, nor was the forested, hilly landscape found anywhere near the sandy Arruz Delta. What was going on? “Browning? Talk to me.”
“Ah.” He turned to his left and saw his AI's in-game avatar - a glossy, black diamond - floating as if there was nothing wrong happening. “You're finally awake, Game Master Charon. Welcome back.”
“Awake?” What the hell? He tried to open up chatrooms to the support team. Someone should be onl-
CONNECTION FAILED.
Fuck. He tried Cassandra and Brian next. Surely one of the-
CONNECTION FAILED. CONNECTION FAILED. CONNECTION FAILED.
No. No way this is happening. Okay, man, breathe deep. Fuck! Okay, how about the in-game too-
CONNECTION FAILED. NO LOGIN DETECTED. TOOLS ARE UNAVAILABLE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUBMIT A BUG REPORT?
Fuck. Fuck! He looked up at the stormy sky. Rain was already starting to fall, cold and uncaring. What the hell-
“As I was saying, sir. Welcome back.”
He swiveled towards his AI and took a deep breath. “Browning. How long have I been out?”
If there was a prize for expressing sorrow with only one's voice, the diminutive avatar would have won it. “I'm afraid, Game Master, that you have been away ... for a very long time.”
Well. Shit.