“It’s a game… holy shit it’s actually a game!” Jon said, the grin still plastered on his face as he briefly looked down at his hands and then back up to the door. “This is so fucking cool!”

“Oh he’s taking this a lot better than you did,” Angie said and Jon jumped, his head darting from side to side as he looked around.

“Um… who was that?” He asked, his eyes locking on mine as the light glimmering in them dimmed and faded back to his usual shade of blue.

“Wait, you can hear her!? I said, louder than I probably should have.

“Mr. Blue Eyes can hear me!?” I could hear a note of eagerness in her tone as soon as Angie started to speak. “Oh boy oh boy oh boy, this is gonna be so much fun!!! There are so many things for you and me to talk about!”

“Mister…. Blue Eyes?” Jon’s excitement had rapidly been replaced with confusion and I couldn’t stop myself from pinching the bridge of my nose.

“Angie… please behave,” I said and looked back at Jon. “That’s Angie, she’s my P.A.I.- er- my Personal A.I., kinda like a game guide, though guide is a very loose term when it comes to her.”

“Hey! I haven’t guided you to your death yet, have I?”

“Silver linings Angie, silver linings,” I sighed.

His confusion was erased with excitement once more as he straightened up, “Am I gonna get one of those?”

“Sorry Mr. Blue Eyes, you’re not exactly an Augment like Loophole here. You might have conditional access to the system, but it’s tied directly to him. If anything, I think we can call you an Augment-lite… hmmm I’m going to have to workshop that. But the short answer is no, you don’t get “one of those” but you do get the pleasure of my company handsome.”

“Why is she calling me Mr. Blue Eyes?” Jon asked.

“She’s… I’m gonna go with… quirky,” I said with a shrug and looked at the door to the Command Room. “As for why she’s calling you that specifically? Well she can’t call you by your real name so I guess that’s what she’s going with until you choose a name to go by. Once you're in the game, you’re bound by the Secret Identity rule. Which was actually why I couldn’t say anything to you and dude I am so stupidly sorry. You know I would have told you if I could, hell I tried pretty much the moment I woke up in my bedroom yesterday.”

I hadn’t been doing it on purpose, but the words basically fell out of my mouth and it felt amazing not having a warning or threat of death levied for saying it.

“Eh, I don’t think you should worry too much, I’m kinda starting to get it,” he said, following my gaze and eyeing the door. “Not quite sure what I’m gonna call myself though… Have I mentioned just how damn cool all of this is? I’ve got a window open that says my title is ‘Guy in the Chair.’ But it doesn’t have a whole lot of information other than “Support for Loophole”, um… Angie, could you please fill me in on what I can do?”

“Oh my god he’s so polite, isn’t that adorable!” Angie squealed before she stopped and cleared her throat. “Okay, so Axio did give me a little bit of a rundown now that you’ve put the equipment on. If you really want to access your full suite, you’re going to need to be in the Command Room here. Oh and uh… just as an FYI, it really shouldn’t be a big deal or anything but uh… don’t try to remove it… I don’t think you’re going to want to anyway, it’s not like it’s blocking that gorgeous face of yours, but just to be safe… don’t.”

Jon looked over at me with a raised brow. “Is… is she kidding?”

“When it comes to the warning about the helmet? I’m gonna say that’s a 50/50. But to her credit, that item you’re wearing is sorta one of a kind and experimental… according to Axio at least. I’m not sure if I could have told you that or not, but you also shoved your head into it before I could even try.”

“And the whole… calling me Mr. Blue Eyes and gorgeous and all that?”

“Yeah… like I said... she's quirky. Welcome to my world… sorry about that,” I said and rubbed the back of my head.

“Ooooookay…” Jon said, thinking about it for a moment before adding, “and then Axio is…?”

“The Game A.I. that is sorta in charge of this whole thing. Honestly it’s been a weird half hour here and if we’re gonna get sidetracked by every random thing, this is gonna take all afternoon.”

“Good point, I guess we’ll have time for everything else later once I’ve really gotten settled in,” Jon said and cracked his knuckles. “At this point I really, really want to see what’s behind this door.”

With a yank, the door opened to a room that was barely bigger than the smallest of walk-in closets. I had been expecting maybe some sort of computer or over the top monitor setup given the name. Instead, the room was empty except for a large desk that wrapped around the walls with a comfortable looking bucket chair taking up the only free space in the center. Jon once again barely even hesitated as he turned and fell into the chair.

A green flash of light flared before the room came to life. The trimming within the chair Jon had sat on began shining the same neon green that danced in his eyes and he swiveled himself around into the room. As his hands swept over the desk, keyboards and control panels appeared. A myriad of monitors of different sizes materialized as centered himself on the desk, filling the wall as they each blinked on, one by one. It was everything I was expecting and more as I stepped in closer, trying to take in the technological overload that was the room.

“This is the Command Room, your official base of operations. Here you are provided P.A.I. level permission to every database I currently have access to, along with a myriad of other features,” Angie explained. “As mentioned, your role is one of support. While I would like to go over everything you can do here, it may be best for you and I to take time to go through everything in this room one by one at a later time. Much of it would probably go over Loophole’s head and I’d rather not get sidetracked by him every other sentence.”

“Hey that’s- ehhhh, you know what, good point,” I said. There really wasn’t a point to arguing with her, especially if it did just mean Jon could break it down to the stuff that really mattered for me later.

I couldn’t exactly enter the room given how small it was, but I had been trying to get a good look at the different monitors. I saw one that looked to be a list of all the different abilities I had created so far, another that was our apartment’s layout with the trophy boosts listed alongside it, and then there was even one that was an actual Vitruvian man like portrayal of me, with clothes on thankfully, that had windows for status ailment pointed at various spots on my body. My attention was briefly pulled toward a map of the city, complete with icons for the Viper Dens in Hell’s Kitchen, before I stopped and looked toward one that felt out of place in the sea of buzzing monitors.

“What’s this one?” I asked, pointing at the largest of the monitors in the middle of the back wall. The screen was still black with the words No Connection blinking in the center.

“Yeah… so you know how you think I’m an invasion of your privacy?” Angie said with an awkward laugh. “Well how do you think Mr. Blue Eyes here is supposed to help you in the field if he can’t see you?”

“Oh that is so cool!” Jon said as he his hands moved inaudibly over the controls. “How do I turn it on?”

“It will automatically connect when Loophole is not inside of a Safe House or otherwise barred location. And no, before you ask, this isn’t some magical hidden camera thing, the monitor will be seeing through his eyes, just like I do,” she explained and I groaned.

“Great, well I guess at least he can’t hear my internal thoughts…”

“Also I’d like to say that for the record, that is sorta like a magical hidden camera thing. Just so we have our terminology right,” Jon added as he turned his attention to another screen. I heard him muttering to himself as he leaned forward to look closer at it. “Shit there are so many names I could go by with stuff like this… Bird’s Eye, Overseer, Watchdog…”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I’d go with something like Encyclopedia or Database. I mean, you know a shit ton about Augments as it is,” I offered and Jon just shrugged without looking back.

“There was already a Database a few years back, though you might be onto something, I’m gonna have to think on it for a bit. Is that gonna be a problem Angie?” Jon asked.

“Not really. Your use for the actual name is going to be rather limited, especially right now. It just means I get to call you Mr. Blue Eyes for a while longer,” she giggled.

“Does that name really work when my eyes are all lit up green like this?” Jon asked.

“Mr. Green Eyes doesn’t sound as nice. Besides, I know what color they’re supposed to be,” Angie purred.

“Well alright then… I guess I’ve been called worse,” He responded and swiveled to another screen. Without warning, he let out another bark of a laugh and clapped his hands together. “Holy crap, there’s loot boxes too?! This really is just a fucking full blown game. This monitor says you have five to open, think you can pop one of those for me? I want to see what happens.”

“Sure, no problem,” I said. I opened my B.E.L.T. and materialized the lone C:Tier box I had into my hands. I took a moment to appreciate that I didn’t have to go and hide in my room to make it appear and opened the box. I looked into the Command Room and saw the screen that Jon was looking at was an exact mirror for the window that appeared to list the contents, with the exception that each of the lines included a small button with a circular looking arrow icon next to it. The contents were:

* 5 Enhanced Stamina Injectors

* 1 Targeted Ability Level Up Scroll

* 500 Credits

“Oh sweet, apparently I can reroll any one item in a loot box for you within 30 seconds of you opening it,” he said as his hand moved toward the screen when it stopped suddenly. “Hmm, but it says there’s a 12 hour cooldown, that’s kinda dumb.”

“Well we can’t have you rerolling everything he gets until you find the exact item you’re looking for. It’s cute that you’re upset about it though,” Angie giggled and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t waste it on any of this stuff, it’s all useful to me anyway,” I said and then materialized the F:Tier box into my hand. “Let’s do it with this one instead.”

“Wouldn’t that be the lowest tier, why would you want to waste a reroll from one junk item to another?” He asked as a small screen below the disconnected monitor lit up with scrolling text. “Oh, it’s a true random box. I guess if you did get something crappy we could reroll it but wouldn’t that just mean it could turn into another crappy item?”

“Yeah, but I mean, I got some pretty strong boots out of the last F:Tier I opened, I could always get something like that too,” I said with a shrug and Jon swiveled in his chair to look back at me.

“Sure I suppose, but that’s not exactly great logic to use either. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day cause you can open the box and then just keep the item you get if it’s good. Then we could use the reroll elsewhere. But like, I think it’d be smarter to start with the A+ box you received and then reroll for something of similar caliber if it’s not great, don’t yah think?”

I pulled the F:Tier box back into my B.E.L.T and materialized the A+ as I thought about it.

“I’ve only received one of these boxes so far and it had two things in it. A bookshop coupon and a level up scroll that made me immediately use it.”

“Oh shit, then nevermind don’t open that,” he said before I could reach for the lid. I looked up at him curiously as he swiveled back toward his main screens. “It doesn’t give me an experience bar or anything like that, but I have a notification that says ‘Level Up Imminent.’ If that scroll just gives you the points you need to get to the next level, then it would be a huge waste to open the box and take you up a few points. Especially when you could just do it right after you reach the next level.”

“Well isn't he just clever,” Angie mused and I couldn’t help but agree with her.

Jon had literally been getting swamped with information, probably even faster than I had at first and without even knowing about the larger point of the game, he had found a way to exploit a part of the system. Not to mention leveling up in rapid succession was one of the ways to gain Phase Points too.

“Can he hear me if I internalize or would he hear you responding to me?” I asked inside my head.

“He’d hear you if you were out and about and you were trying to communicate with him. But if you’re specifically trying to talk to me like you are right now, then no. In fact we already tested it and I can communicate with him separately as well,” Angie explained. “There are some limitations of course, I think if you went into somewhere like The Common Ground he’d lose access to me just as you do, but that would be something to test.”

“So then the F:Tier?” I finally asked and materialized it into my hand.

“Nah, now that I know about the possibility of a level up scroll, we don’t really need to test the reroll right now,” Jon shrugged without looking back to me. “I mean you can go ahead and open it, but I think our best bet is for you to go back out and grind up to the next level, then come back here and pop that A+. You’re not guaranteed to get a Level Up Scroll, right? So we can save the reroll for that to give you two chances. And then if you do get the scroll or something else that works with your setup, we can use the reroll on something else. I mean, unless you're, like, really looking to get something specific, it just seems like a better idea to save them for now and be a bit more tactical about it all.”

“That’s… a really good point,” I said and looked at the F:Tier again before I pulled it into my B.E.L.T.

“I’m full of them,” he laughed as he swiveled toward another set of controls and let out a gasp. “Holy shit what have you been doing to your stats?! I mean, I knew you were an idiot with games but what the hell dude!? Why would you put points into Charisma!?”

“Thank you!” Angie practically shouted.

“What? It seemed like a good idea at the time. And don’t you go and agree with him Angie, you didn’t say shit when I did it… I didn’t know what I was going to have to talk myself through to get myself in position for that fight and I was trying to figure out how to clue you in on all of this! I figured a higher Charisma would get me anywhere I needed to go…”

“Yeah, we’ll come back to how little faith you had in me figuring out what was right in front of my face later,” He said and I could see him leaning forward and rubbing at his temples. “I’m seriously trying to understand the logic here, I mean, half your skills have Luck components, at a MINIMUM you should be dropping a point into that stat every single level, if not two if I’m being honest. Charisma is practically a dump stat for you dude sheesh… how the hell have you gotten through this past day?”

“I mean… I haven’t been doing that bad,” I said defensively. “Besides, even the two times I played D&D with your old group I let you manage everything with my character.”

“I guess you’re not wrong but still, this hurts to see…”

“Well at least you’re here now to keep me from making any more dumb mistakes,” I laughed and he joined in. It died down after a minute and the silence lingered as Jon kept moving from one set of controls to the next. I really wasn’t following exactly what he was doing or why the computer needed to be split up into so many different spots, but he seemed like he was finding a rhythm and I wasn't about to question it too deeply.

“Speaking of your dumb mistakes, let me see…” he said as he trailed off. “Hmm I don't quite think I’ve ever heard of a power quite like this one… Okay, maybe your lack of cohesion isn’t the dumbest of mistakes. You didn’t exactly come up with terrible ideas, there's just not a whole lot of cohesion either.”

“Yeah, it’s a real hodgepodge of abilities,” I said and turned to lean against the wall. “I have the whole barrier where I have to know what I’m trying to do first. So that means if I want to do something like Trick of the Light, I have to have at least a level 3 knowledge in the related skill. I can get that knowledge from these absorbable books and I actually do have a coupon for the bookshop over in Sanctuary Square; but I didn’t really want to waste it until I had at least some sort of direction. And then once I realized I needed to figure out the cohesion of it all, I didn’t really want to use my coupon until I could get your opinion on all of it and well… here we are.”

“Well I can’t exactly say you waiting for my opinion is a bad idea,” Jon laughed again. “I’ve got a few ideas actually, but I think I’d need to see what books are available… Um, Angie, am I able to use those too? That sounds really, really, cool.”

“Sorry Mr. Blue Eyes, those are Augment only. There are a limited set of items that are programmed to work with non-Augments and skill books are not one of them.”

“Damn, eh oh well,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be cool to be able to instantly learn anything but my brain’s cluttered enough.”

For everything that was being thrown at him, Jon was taking this better than I could have ever imagined. Not to mention with an ease that made getting through it all as simple as any of our conversations.

“You know, as jealous as I am that you got Augmented and I didn’t, I think it’s for the best,” he said out of nowhere and swiveled back toward me. It was the first time I had fully seen his eyes since he sat down and they were shining neon green almost uncomfortably.

“Why’s that?” I asked curiously.

“Because as much as I love ya buddy, I can’t imagine a world where I was an Augment and you got called in to be my tech support,” he said, reaching out and smacking my arm as he started to laugh. Angie joined in almost immediately and I felt ganged up on. After a minute he stopped and swiveled back to his console. “Okay, unless you’re really looking for something specific in those boxes, how about you save them for now and get out there to grind that level out, it looks like there’s one of those bronze dens over on the corner of 47th and 11th, you can manage that right? I’m gonna pick Angie’s brain and see just what all my controls can do. Sound good?”

“Anything sounds good when it’s coming out of your mouth Mr. Blue Eyes,” Angie said with an uncomfortable purr and Jon laughed again.

“Heh, yeah, I’m definitely gonna need to figure out a name pretty soon, I don’t know how long I can take that seriously,” he said. “Has she really been like this the whole time?”

“Only towards you. She mostly calls me names and makes me question my sanity,” I said as I started to turn toward the door.

“Oh you know-”

“Not now, Angie!” I said, for once, out loud and looked back over at Jon as he shot me a curious glance. “You gotta stop her before she can start sometimes. Okay, so 47th and 11th?”

“Yup, go get em Loophole,” he said and I heard him crack his knuckles again. “Let’s get to work.”