Dis/Connect

Prologue – Loading

  “Are you sure you this is the right address?” Ted’s voice rose muffled under the gentle roaring of the crowd, a crumpled yellow post-it not clutched in one hand the other pressing his phone to his ear a overly excitable voice laughing out on the other end.

“Yeah that’s the place. Look Gramps there’s still time to change your mind you don’t have to go through with this, I can re-arrange things in a matter of hours, don’t let your pride-“ Elliot never finished his sentence, the old man letting out a low humph and cutting him off.

“You’ve already made it pretty clear that I simply must accept. However if I’m going to do it, I am doing it my way; I chose this game so this is the game I’m going to play!”

  The old man yelled switching off his old touch screen before shoving it into his shirt pocket a smirk curling the corner of his lips. Well that seemed like enough fun, Ted let out a low sighed leaning down onto his cane slipping the post it note into his back pocket, before taking in a slow shuddering breath.

  He’d reached one-hundred and twenty-five years old last month, although it was only thanks to those new medical treatments and the steel hip joint that he was able to walk around so freely which he was grateful for. He really wasn’t the kind of man to spend the winter of his years locked up at home being old and decrepit and useless. He’d tried painting, then got bored, he’d tried writing and he never would again; wood work, models, hiking even crown green bowling. Hell at one point he’d even been desperate enough to attempt knitting; a hobby which he’d only managed to escape through the very careful application of a pair of scissors.

  Of course Elliot was going to try and find him a new hobby, and of course knowing the young dumbass it just had to be something high tech and confusing. Ted huffed rubbing at his face and making his way forward across the road

  He’d landed in Japan a week ago the following days filled mainly with sightseeing, shrugging if someone asked him something in Japanese, and pretending he understood them when they tried again in English. All in all it had certainly been entertaining but now there was no turning back, Ted shook his head, he should have just kept his mouth shut.

  Elliot had come to visit for Ted’s birthday as he always did, and as usual he brought over some strange modern contraption as a birthday present to take a prided place on ‘Ted’s shelf of junk he never used but felt guilty tossing over the neighbours fence’. Of course eventually the conversation had turned to how had he been doing and when the stock responses of ‘keeping active’ and ‘watching old movies’ failed him he went on about his new ‘hobbies’. They’d talk long into the night picking up and shooting down ideas for what he could use to kill his time and hopefully avoid further back injury, and in the end Elliot asked him a question which had left him more than a little unsettled; ‘what was your dream?’. Quite frankly he’d forgotten he had ever had a dream, something he wanted to do, but after dredging up some half formed pipe-dreams from deep within his subconscious he remembered there was one thing he’d always wanted.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He wanted to start a farm.

  His parents never let him have a pet as child, unless you counted his goldfish, which no sane child would, so he’d decided when he grew up he’d be a farmer and fill his farm with all the strangest and most wonderful type of creatures imaginable. Of course he grew up, he didn’t get much say in that despite the fact his parents maintained he was still a child up until they finally kicked the bucket. He wanted to be a farmer... Of course there was little chance of that now, he simply didn’t have the strength and he just didn’t find the same appeal in growing flowers and tomatoes as he did in vast open fields of wheat and herds of cows and horses and possibly dragons if he ever discovered how to catch them.

  So this was Elliot’s solution instead; virtual reality.

  Ted stood still, a constant in the heaving undulations of the crowd, the heat of the eastern sun oppressive against his shoulders. He took in a deep breath walking towards the monolithic skyscraper looming before him. The walls were constructed largely of glass with concrete pillars running up every few feet; all painted a cheery pink of course while a large logo of what looked like the head of an anime elf hung above the doors whirling gears and rays of what he assumed were light shinning behind her. Of course the thing that really stumped him were the pictures of the scantily clad anime girls printed on every single window pane of the building. Although in all honesty he’d been expecting that much, and somewhat in secret had been looking forward to it, of course the fact every one of those beauties was a monster girl was starting to put him off. Not that he had any particular problem with that, but he’d been hoping for a classic fantasy game, or maybe something a little more steampunk or dungeons and dragons. It seemed like this game was going to be a little bit racier than he’d been anticipating. 

  Of course that was probably his own fault, when Elliot insisted that he enter a virtual reality game he’d initially been onboard; then he saw the prices involved, then he refused, then Elliot insisted. So as a compromise Ted ignored everything the young man said until Elliot threatened to just pay for a slot in the most expensive game he could find and let Ted decide whether he wanted to show up.

  In the end Ted did get a choice over which game he was getting shoved into but all he really did was find the cheapest game in the fantasy genre and clicked buy. Since then Elliot had tried to get him to change his mind on his choice several times. Of course each attempt had been blatantly ignored, and out of a truly gallant sense of spite Ted had refused to even read the games description or instructions and now he was starting to get a bad feeling about his past decisions. 

  Well there was no point in just standing around, Ted let out a low sigh marching forwards with what little strength his old bones could muster, stepping clear through the automatic doors towards an information desk where a young woman sat a plastic smile slapped across her face and a bizarre uniform hugging uncomfortably close to her figure. It probably chafed pretty badly. She began by greeting him in Japanese followed by a slight bow and a translation into English. “It is nice to meet you Mr Theodore Percival Wilmond. Everything has been prepared for you; I introduce you to Horns and Tails, the world’s most popular erotic virtual reality game.”

  ...of course.