I do want to find out who I am. What is it you want me to do?

>You will help us rob a bank<

WHAT?

>You will help us execute a heist at the Repository. We don’t take bounties, so we need to acquire Crypt through other methods. Often that means providing Volunteers with special services. However, we have a plan that will keep our critical work funded for many cycles to come. There is risk involved, but helping us will go a long way toward resolving our suspicions of you. And, in exchange, we will share some of our knowledge<

Umm…

>It isn’t your money, and it isn’t Volunteer money. It is Corporate money we are targeting. For the good of all Volunteers<

…

>You don’t have to decide now. In fact, it is better that you don’t. We will create a special shielded category in your menu. A place to track subroutines hidden from system detection<

I saw my menu opened again, overwhelmingly bright in the darkness, and watched it automatically scroll down to the bottom. A new submenu option had appeared.

[DESIGNATION

STATISTICS

SKILLS

EQUIPMENT

INVENTORY

ECONOMY

MEMORY

STATUS

TASKS

>SUBROUTINES]

As I helplessly observed this insertion, the submenu opened and a new task was added. The details were typed in before my eyes in real time.

[>SUBROUTINES

* Assist Antisoc with Repository Heist (Pending)]

>You can make any notes or edits to information in your subroutines as you see fit. It will be invisible to any outside observer, including us once we boot you from this pocket server instance. Just one of many services we can provide to Volunteers<

I definitely need some time to think about this. How do I get in touch with you if I decide to help?

>There is a modest yokocho in the vicinity of The Commons spawn point for new Volunteers. It has no name, but you will see a simple neon blue sign. The kanji for fish in a closed circle. Order the fugu. If we discover or suspect that you are collaborating with ColSec, eating the dish will flatline you. But if we trust you, Schrödinger will guide you to us<

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

With no sense of my appendages in this dark limbo, I tried to mentally type notes beneath my new subroutine. Spawn point. Fugu. Schrödinger. It wasn’t working. I would have to try and recall the information and attempt to type it in manually later.

>Goodbye for now, Volunteer 01001110 01101111 01100010 01101111 01100100 01111001. We will be watching<

The floating faces of the Three Magi vanished from sight. Slowly, the darkness faded and my normal visualization returned. I found myself standing in the alleyway’s dead end, staring at the brick wall.

What?

I reached out to probe the wall. It was solid all the way through. No matter how hard I pressed or where, it was nothing but a brick wall at the ugly end of an alley.

I quickly opened my menu and searched my history. There was no mention of Antisoc. No record of a cat. Just me wandering the streets of The Commons and then, apparently, standing silently and staring at a blank wall for an unknown length of time. I must have looked crazy to any passerby, had there been one. The concept ‘away from keyboard’ popped into my mind.

However, the Subroutines category remained. It had actually happened, and a subversive change to my menu was proof, albeit only to me.

I gave up on the wall and walked back to the rows of food stalls. The bustling Volunteers paid no notice of me, as usual. I looked around for the yokocho with a blue sign, but didn’t immediately find it. I needed to think. I grabbed a stool at the nearest hole-in-the-wall drinking establishment and signaled for the vendor.

“Irasshaimase!”

On a whim I ordered warm saké and soon had a ceramic spouted vessel and handleless cup set before me. The only other Volunteer at this particular bar slid one stool further away from me, pulling down the brim of a dark brown cowboy hat and muttering. I poured myself one and slowly nursed the drink, appreciating the taste and the warmth against my lips and throat but feeling no alcoholic effect beyond what I attributed to a strong placebo. All the comforts of domy.

There were a lot of conflicting thoughts swimming around in my head. Antisoc. They said they suspected me of being a plant or ColSec collaborator primarily because of a strange energy signal, something that they had detected from no other Volunteer. But no matter how hard I searched through every cavity and crevice of my descending submenus, I could find no reference to such a signal. Were they lying to me, or did such a signal exist?

Further, if Antisoc had truly suspected me of being their enemy, why would they reveal themselves? Why not remain hidden? It made no sense. By the time I had moved on to my third cup, I had come up with three possible explanations.

One, they had never suspected me at all and were trying to manipulate me into participating in an illegal and risky operation. Maybe they wanted to use me as a patsy. But that didn’t make sense either. Why would they want to burn a fellow Volunteer? Wouldn’t that make Volunteers turn against them and possibly go to ColSec in revenge? Was I so insignificant that having me take the fall would be worth the minimal exposure?

Explanation Two, they wanted to confirm whether or not I was a bot or double-agent, which they could only do by trapping me and peeping into my history and menus. If they had been proven right, perhaps they could have eliminated the threat to their operation then and there. They had mentioned something about not being able to call for help, for reprisals if I tried to use countermeasures. They kept using the term flatline. But if they killed me, wouldn't I just respawn at the Restoration Point? Perhaps they had the ability to disable, incapacitate, or otherwise delete a threat in a more permanent way.

Explanation Three, and most chilling, Antisoc didn’t exist. This was actually an elaborate sting operation originated by ColSec. An entrapment scheme to weed out Volunteers not playing by the rules of the system.

Great. Was paranoia going to be added alongside dissociative amnesia to my growing list of psychiatric complaints? I ordered more saké. A shame I couldn’t get drunk. Probably would need body modification surgery to allow my avatar to absorb and distribute this virtual alcohol. And that, most fragging likely, would cost a small fortune. For now, dropping 30 Crypt in this izakaya seemed worth it to feel just a little more human.