If the party expected a hero’s welcome upon their return, they were sorely disappointed. The guards and players alike paid them little heed upon their re-entry to the town, as they engaged in all-around back-patting, bantering, and skill-point allocation. A few others were preoccupied with a heated discussion concerning the appearance of the mysterious figure, but all seemed wholly unconcerned with the returning party.
“Man, you’d think for saving this whole crummy town we’d get a little recognition,” Charles muttered, casting an evil eye over the jubilant players filing down from the battlements.
“Well, they saved our bacon too,” Marie interjected. “If they hadn’t backed us up, I doubt we could’ve just taken on a whole army of monsters like that.”
“Well, I think we were doing pretty all right for ourselves…” Charles muttered.
“Besides, Charles” — Marie grinned smugly, elbowing him in his armoured ribs — “Didn’t you already receive your “hero’s reward” from Tenshi?”
“Put a sock in it, Alex,” Charles grumbled, closing his visor.
“We should see the Doctor as soon as he logs back in,” Isaac commented, looking at Charles’ wounded arm and feeling the gash in his own chest. “We all took some bad knocks, and low-level healing skills can only do so much.”
“Naw, I’m perfectly fine, that guy patched up my arm pretty good,” Charles replied, flexing.
“Technically, he just closed the wound and deadened the pain,” Isaac corrected. “Combat heals are good for keeping you going on an adventure or in battle, but in the long run, you really wanna let a Doctor look at you. I designed them with post-combat treatment in mind, giving them an arsenal of just about every healing, mending, and debuffing skill known to BRYZ, so we might as well use ‘em as intended.”
“Sorry to put a damper on your plans, but it could be a while until the rest of the town logs back in,” Marie commented, surveying the desolate streets. “Dunno how quickly news spreads here.”
“Well, how about this then;” Isaac offered. “I don’t know about you guys’ time zones, but it’s right around my lunchtime. Why don’t we all go our separate ways, and agree to meet back here in three hours?”
“Works with me,” Charles assented.
Tenshi nodded slightly as well.
“Sounds good, but when we get back, I’ve also got a place I wanna show you,” Marie piped up.
“Where’s that?” Isaac asked, opening his game map.
“I’ll tell you when we log back in,” Marie grinned. “It’s a pretty popular place with new adventurers, I think it’d do us all good to go.”
“Okay, well if there’re no objections, lets meet back here in three hours!” Isaac declared, heading back towards his hotel room.
“Oh, but before we go, come with me a sec, Isaac.” Charles beckoned him, stepping off the main street.
“Hmm? What’s up?” Isaac asked.
“Nothing much, just a little guy-time.” Charles winked. “The rest of you can log out.”
Marie rolled her eyes. “Whatever you’re doing, wash your hands afterwards, okay?”
Charles laughed over his shoulder, collaring Isaac and dragging him along with him, turning a corner into an abandoned alleyway.
“What’re we doing here?” Isaac looked around at the featureless walls and empty doorways.
“Oh…just a little heart-to-heart chat…” Charles responded evasively, checking around the corner to make sure the rest of the party had left. Satisfied, he turned back to Isaac. Cracking his neck, he reached out and grabbed Isaac by his shirt-front with his good hand, bodily lifting him off the ground and slamming him against the wall.
“The heck bro…?!” Isaac started.
“Look, I’m only going to say this once, so I need an honest answer out of you,” Charles said in a low voice, all levity gone from his expression and mannerisms. “I’m the protector of this team, and that’s something I take very seriously. As long as I’m the eldest, I intend to make sure aaaall the rest of us get to enjoy our time in a lighthearted, low-stakes adventure.”
Bringing his face closer to Isaac’s he continued. “But what just happened out there was anything but. If it’d been anyone other than Tenshi, she’d have died, Isaac. That means no citizenship, credit history, graduate, degree, immigration status, or anything not stored on paper. And that's not even counting the mental trauma of a simulated death. Do you know what that can do to a person, Isaac?”
“What do you want from me?” Isaac asked, defensively. “I’m a victim here too!”
“I know. You said you didn’t program perma-death intentionally, and I’m inclined to believe you.” Charles released his grip, dropping Isaac to his feet. “But this all came from your head.” He tapped Isaac’s skull firmly. “What was that thing that fought us? Was it a player? An AI? And how many more of them are there?” He looked Isaac in the eye. “I can’t protect everyone from an unknown threat, Isaac.”
Isaac gulped, trying to meet Charles’s piercing gaze. “That was Sylph, one of the seven campaign mini-bosses,” he answered meekly. “But that’s the thing; they were supposed to come out in the update two weeks from now! I planned to have the first two weeks of the game be just me and my friends getting used to the world, before an event would trigger and the story would begin.” He gulped. “She shouldn’t be here, Charles!”
“Oh God.” Charles passed his hand over his face and sighed deeply. “Ohhhhkay. Well, I can work with this. That’s all I need to know? 7 minibosses, and an update in two weeks? That’s everything?”
“And one campaign boss, but he’s not supposed to leave the final stage,” Isaac followed up. “I can explain the contents of the update to you later, although I have no way of known if it’ll actually occur like it was supposed to.”
“Not supposed to leave the final stage, eh?” Charles smirked wryly. “Like Sylph wasn’t supposed to show up yet. Great. And still no idea of why she was targeting us.” He ran a hand through his hair, then turned back to Isaac.
“Well, that’s really all I wanted to know. Thanks for being honest with me, and…uh…sorry I kinda roughed you up, both here and on the battlefield.” He patted Isaac’s shoulder roughly.
“No, it’s okay,” Isaac muttered back. “But…um…why do you care anyway, Charles? I mean, we all only met yesterday.”
“Well…” Charles rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “You know what, ask me that later, once we know each other better.”
“What is this, a locked route in an RPG?” Isaac smirked.
“Something like that.” Charles laughed, an honest-to-goodness laugh. “Alright, I’ll see you later, enjoy your lunch.” He started walking away. Then, he turned back. “And sorry again, man. I mean it.”
“No worries.” Isaac waved, walking back to his hotel room to log off.
But even after removing his headset and sitting down to lunch, the thought still weighed on him. What was going on in BRYZ?
*******
Three hours later, Isaac was the second to return, with Tenshi naturally already present.
“You are early,” she stated, matter-of-factly.
“I’d say “so are you”, but something tells me you never left in the first place,” Isaac quipped.
“You would be correct to assume so.”
“Figured.”
The two exchanged no further words, both loitering around the now bustling town square where they had agreed to meet. Isaac idly scrolled through his game menu, while Tenshi quietly observed the passers-by, her crimson eyes darting back and forth while her head remained unmoving. At her feet, Cat lay contentedly curled up in the sunshine, watching a passing butterfly lazily.
“Hey, it looks like you can name custom weapons through your game menu!” Isaac exclaimed, breaking the silence between the pair. “Also, it looks like whoever made my pistol never bothered to give it a name, so its name slot’s still open!”
“What will you call it?” Tenshi asked, not moving.
“I don’t know yet,” Isaac admitted. “When it comes to names, I’m very spur-of-the-moment. I’ll keep it in the back of my mind, and eventually some word or name will “click”, and that will become its name.”
“How arbitrary,” Tenshi observed.
“More important than the name itself is that it fits,” Isaac asserted. “It’s just like my username. I’m not going to rush it, since it’s something that I’ll have to live with the rest of my time here. I don’t wanna be one of those guys changing his handle every month. It’s better to wait until something fits.”
A call from behind them interrupted Isaac’s monologue. The pair turned to see Charles walking over to them with his usual sauntering demeanor, his armour removed.
“Sorry to keep you guys waiting,” Charles apologized, joining the pair in slouching against a nearby building, keeping his distance from Isaac out of consideration. “Where’d Marie get to?”
“I dunno, she hasn’t showed up yet,” Isaac returned. “Honestly, I figured she’d be one of the first.”
“Well, according to her player status, she should be online,” Charles continued, swiping his BRYZ menu.
“Sorry about that!” A familiar voice rang out. Pushing her way through the crowd, the trio could see Marie making her way towards the group. “I went ahead to make sure there wasn’t a line already,” she explained.
“That’s fine and all, but where are we going anyways?” Isaac asked
“I didn’t think of it until Tenshi mentioned abilities, but there’s a shop here with a guy whose ability “CRITIC” lets him identify our own abilities,” Marie clarified, motioning for the group to follow her. “I thought it was a scam at first, but now that I’ve seen an ability in action, I kinda want to check it out.”
“No complaints here,” Charles nodded, falling into step behind her. “I want to know what my ability is too. I bet it’s something heroic!”
“Well, I can’t promise anything,” Isaac explained. “Although, unlike the classes which are based more on personal tastes, the abilities are assigned through a combination of personality traits and good old randomness. It does factor your class into the equation a little, but only to prevent a thief from gaining a shield-based ability or something equally impractical.”
“I meant to ask about that,” Charles paused, turning to Isaac. “You said our classes were based on our personal tastes, but how did your program figure those out?”
“Actually, it’s a bit complicated,” Isaac replied. “Technically, you took a five-minute high-speed test when you first joined BRYZ, you just don’t remember it. It would do things like rapidly flash images of different classes, and note which ones you subconsciously reacted to, be it excitement or disdain. Based on these subconscious, knee-jerk reactions, it would establish a class that you would enjoy to play.”
“I dunno, I feel like I would’ve remembered taking a test like that.” Charles scratched his head. “You said it took place right when I first joined the new BRYZ?”
“Yeah, but there’s a reason you don’t remember it,” Isaac elaborated. “The main thing that makes the N-LiFe so immersive is the communication between the brain and the computer. However, because the path is essentially a two-way street, it's possible to influence the brain through the system to which you’re linking. Essentially, after you took the test, BRYZ erased all memories you had of it, thus making it seem like you just randomly received a class! Neat, huh?”
"Hooold the phone, pal,” Charles stopped, raising his hand to his forehead in disbelief. “You can rewrite our memories using the N-LiFe?”
“Well, only to a certain degree,” Isaac backtracked. “If you recall, Macroware invented the two-way interface in the N-LiFe, so they put lots of difficult countermeasures in place. There’s a very short time limit to the amount of memory I can erase, without doing levels and levels of decoding, far beyond me. Essentially, I could create an event you wouldn’t remember, but not remove memories already established in you.”
“I’d like to say that’s a relief, but I don’t like the idea of ANY amount of memory-editing,” Marie interjected, shaking her head.
“Well, Macroware’s N-LiFes are pretty safe, I wouldn’t worry much about them,” Isaac assured her. “What bothers me is the clone brands. You know that Pear and Lynx are always only a step behind Macroware in technology, so when the Alpha Centauri 2000 came out, they were quick to develop their own clones, the Pear Sandman and the Lynx Augury. However, from what I saw during my research, the barriers put in place to prevent mind-editing on the rival brands are much weaker than those on Macroware’s. Therefore, it’d be substantially easier to try something devious like memory-erasing on someone who bought an N-LiFe from Pear or Lynx.” Isaac paused. “You all bought Macroware N-LiFes, right?”
“You bet,” Charles confirmed, tapping his head. “When it comes to something like linking with my brain, I wasn’t gonna go cheap.”
“Same here,” Marie agreed. “I was actually one of the first to own an N-LiFe, so the Sandman and Augury weren’t even available by then.
“What about you Tenshi?” Isaac asked, turning to her.
“Most likely…Lynx,” Tenshi replied. “I am unconcerned, however.”
“Suit yourself.” Isaac shrugged. “Unless you believe in conspiracy theories, the chance of someone trying to “hack” your head is virtually nil anyway. Besides, I hacked into BRYZ using a Lynx Cryovision I bought off a Chinese black-marketeer to avoid tracking, and I’m none the worse for wear.”
“What the heck is a Cryovision?” Charles asked. “I thought the Alpha Centauri 2000, Sandman, and Augury were the only available N-LiFes currently on the market. Is the Cryovision one of those new releases set for this summer?”
“No, while those three are technically the only ones currently available to consumers,” Isaac replied “Macroware, Pear, and Lynx all have prototype models they use for their own engineers. The Cryovision is an older make of a Lynx engineer-only N-LiFe.”
“You hacked into BRYZ on a Lynx OS?” Charles asked, dumbfounded. “That’s one fact the historians are gonna have to gloss over.”
“Hey, the Cryovision was the cheapest untraceable N-LiFe I could find!” Isaac defended “And even so, it cost me all my savings, plus I had to “borrow” my brother’s credit card. I had to comb the darkest alleys of the virtual black markets to find a retailer, and the non-Lynx versions he had sold for a small fortune each.”
“Well, untraceability is almost unobtainable in this day and age where even privacy’s a rarity,” Marie commented cynically. “Still, why would the developers need untraceable N-LiFes?”
“Probably to prevent security leaks or ordinary people accessing company secrets,” Isaac replied. “When you use something like the Cryovision, you’re on a whole new plane of connection in BRYZ. You can’t interact with ordinary users, and they can’t interact with you. It’s like being a ghost.”
“That’s a bit of a scary idea,” Charles commented. “Essentially, even when you think you’re having a private conversation with a friend, browsing, or doing some shopping, there could be an official with one of those special N-LiFes watching you, and you’d never know it.”
“Technically, yes,” Isaac replied. “However, when I say they’re on a different plane, it really means just that. Interacting with regular users would require some serious coding. Besides, in the original internet, it was just as easy to be tracked and traced. There were even leaked proofs that the government was spying on citizens through their email and browser history. If there’s one thing you can guarantee, it’s that the government will have their fingers in as many pies as they can.”
Suddenly, Isaac paused. “Oh crikey, something just occurred to me!” he exclaimed, slapping a hand over his face.
“Hmmm? What’s up?” Charles asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“We never explained to Marie my whole involvement in this BRYZ world!” Isaac moaned. “We must look like a real bunch of lunatics, going on about hacking into BRYZ and all that.”
“Ooops, I guess I kinda forgot to fill her in,” Charles admitted. “Eh, she’s a dunderhead, this probably went over her head anyway.”
“Oh, Tenshi already told me everything,” Marie laughed, driving a retaliatory elbow into Charles’ ribs.
“I did,” Tenshi affirmed.
“Wha…?!? When?” Isaac exclaimed, running up next to her.
“After the battle, when you and Charles were busy comparing sizes,” Marie explained. “Tenshi followed after me and explained the whole story. I gotta say, it was a heckuva lot to unload on me like that.” She paused and smirked. “Buuuut, I guess after all the crazy things that’ve happened recently, I’m about inclined to believe anything if it sounds half decent.”
“That’s very…accepting of you,” Isaac quipped, bemused.
“Really?” Marie returned nonchalantly. “The way Tenshi explained it, it made a whole lotta sense. Also” -- she stopped in the middle of the street, gesturing to an adjacent shop with a sweeping motion of her arm -- “we’re here.”
In front of the group was a small shop, decorated in gaudy purple curtains. A gold-texted sign hung in front of the doorway on a red ribbon, slanted on a jaunty angle as it rattled in the breeze.
"Abercrombie’s Ability Identification” it read. “Inquire Within”.
ns18.222.112.116da2
