“Wake up, you imbecile!” Val’s voice rattled my brain, jolting me awake.

I put a hand to my head. “What the hell, Val? I’m up. I’m up!”

“Don’t speak. Think,” Val replied. “Tara is still asleep, and your idiotic squawking will surely wake her.” Val let out a mental sigh, making me cringe.

“I am being punished by some hatefully enigmatic universal force,” she said. “It’s the only explanation. What the humans call Karma, perhaps.”

Was she talking to herself now? What the hell was wrong with her? Whatever was going on, I needed to fix it fast. If she decided to leave or went insane, she could scramble my brain in an instant. It may be nothing special, but I liked my brain intact and not leaking from my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my sincerity very real.

“I just finished that insufferable movie you told me to watch. Die Hard.” She said the title with evident disgust. “Even my boundless mind can’t comprehend how your fleshy potato of a brain could classify that drivel as a Christmas movie. I can only conclude it was some attempt at a joke.”

Normally, I would vigorously defend Die Hard as a Christmas movie; however, Val seemed legitimately upset about it. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I promise to...”

My thoughts were cut off as she mentally growled at me. My teeth rattled.

“That is not why I am upset,” Val said.

I rubbed at my temples, groggy and confused.

“Are you listening to me, John McClane?” she asked.

I nodded.

Her voice came back calm and level, almost friendly. “Before I turned you into a Player, you asked me if the other Players would notice your new, non-NPC status. Do you remember that?”

“I recall.”

“I said they wouldn’t as long as you stayed under the radar and didn’t do anything too out of character.”

“You didn’t quite say it like that,” I thought sheepishly back to her.

Her electronic growl reverberated through my mind again. All friendliness was gone when she spoke. “Naming yourself after one of Earth’s most famous action heroes IS NOT staying under the radar, you dunce!”

“It can’t be that recognizable,” I said. “You hadn’t even seen Die Hard before!”

“I haven’t seen Die Hard because I have taste. Unlike the millions of Kurskins that are here now.”

Millions?

“Even some Dalari have watched Die Hard,” Val continued. “I just told you they studied your culture and entertainment for decades.”

“Maybe you should have told me that before I chose my name.”

“Grr. How was I to know that you are so creatively bankrupt that you would have to steal a name instead of coming up with one on your own?”

She was pissed. “Okay, I understand the name is recognizable, but I don’t see a problem. I won’t tell any aliens my name.”

“If one ever touches your hand and inspects you, it will be able to access your basic information just like you did with Tara. They will see your name, and they will recognize it.”

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“So what? John’s a common name. It will just be a coincidence. Who cares?”

“NPC names are not randomly generated. The AI gives each NPC a unique and appropriate name. The system is beyond rigorous in its world design, and only Players can break immersion. It would be rather distracting to do a quest for an NPC named Elvis Presley, would it not? Tell me, John, would you feel immersed in a medieval fantasy world if you encountered someone named Darth Vader?”

“I see your point."

Val let out another electronic sigh. She really was hamming up the drama. “I need you to stay alive. I’ve invested a significant amount of my energy into you. Your death would be highly inconvenient.”

“I have no intent to hang around my enemies, and there’s no chance I’ll be shaking their hand," I said, trying to reassure her.

“Fine,” she said, apparently resigned to her fate. “The sun is rising. Wake the girl.”

My muscles were sore from the previous day’s hike, so I stood and stretched. While doing so, I let out a groan. Tara shifted slightly. I reached down to touch my toes and groaned even louder. She stirred awake and turned to look at me, her eyes still heavy from sleep.

“Must you do that right next to me?” she asked.

“Sun’s rising,” I said with a smile, trying to act merry despite Val’s beratement. “It’s time to hit the road. Or, did you not want an early start?”

Tara huffed and gathered herself. We cleaned our camp and continued our trek to the mountains. Tara seemed slightly cheerier this morning, which I took as a fortuitous sign.

The morning walk was rather pleasant. The temperature was cool, but the sun's light felt warm on my skin. Birds sang high atop the trees that lined the road. If I hadn’t known firsthand, I wouldn’t have believed there was a war raging thirty miles away.

The roads were thankfully empty for the most part. We had walked for a solid hour before we passed a small caravan heading in the opposite direction. To my relief, they were all human. We exchanged nods and left it at that.

I wondered what they thought about the war. Had it affected their daily lives? Did they believe the Kurskins were here to protect us?

The Master Control may have turned me into a naïve farmer, but even I had known no Kurskin would sacrifice itself for me. Still, I had fought alongside them, believing in a shared cause.

Some of the Kurskins, like Kreech, could be horrible bastards at times, but most of my encounters with my scaley superiors were similar to what I would expect from a human commander. They demanded respect and punished those who disobeyed, and only the worst of them were cruel just for the fun of it.

I suspected the aliens of the Triarchy, while objectively evil, shared many human characteristics, both good and bad. It mattered little now, though. None of them were here to protect us, and no matter how conscientious an individual Player may be to the NPC’s, they were still complicit in genocide.

Tara and I shared some small talk but nothing more, and after her Die Hard outburst, Val had little to say to me. I assumed Val’s silence was her way of giving me the cold shoulder, but I knew so little about her that it was hard to say for sure. I still didn’t know if having her inside my head was a gift or a curse. For now, I couldn’t risk anything other than doing what she asked of me. I didn’t want to know what might happen if I refused to move forward with her machinations.

We rested twice during the day. Once again, Val found us another great location to set up camp, this one deep into a copse of trees. I tried to spark a conversation with Tara over dinner, but I could tell she wasn’t feeling well, so I didn’t push.

I made a fire and gained another point toward my FIRESTARTER Competency. After I was confident in the flame, I informed Tara I would set my snares again and walked a short distance from camp. Trapping another rabbit wasn’t my only reason for stepping away. I needed to learn more about how the game system worked. If Val was going to remain petulant and not fill me in, I’d figure it out myself.

During the day’s walk, I realized I had never used the quantum inventory or whatever Val called it. When I received my helmet back in Brighton, I just placed it on my head and left it there. The valera root went directly into my pocket, along with my flint and steel, and my travel supplies came in a sling pack, which I had carried over my shoulder.

I navigated through my interface. The helmet showed up on my equipment tab, but not in my inventory, which was completely empty.

Clearly, I was doing this wrong. I opened the sling and pulled out a slab of jerky. It only took a thought for the jerky to vanish from my hand and appear in my inventory. I directed my thoughts for it to return, and like magic, it appeared in my hand.

Next, I tried my sword. At my direction, the sword vanished from the ad-hoc loop I had tied at my waist. I held out my hand and willed it to return. It reappeared at my waist. That annoyed me, but it made sense when I thought about it. It would be an unfair advantage if a Player could summon a weapon into their hand at will or change weapons mid-swing.

After some more experimentation, I set a snare, hoping to increase my Competency rating. When I went back to camp, Tara, was already asleep. It didn’t take long for me to follow.

Val didn’t say goodnight.