Chương 35: Behave
The ride back to the base was uneventful even in the dark, everyone was tired and exhausted. This level of exhaustion felt different than anything they've ever experienced and even telling themselves it was just a game wasn't helping much.
Yurika was uncharacteristically quiet, she placed her hand on the bandage that was on her arm and gave it a slight squeeze and winced from pain.
"Why did you do that?" asked Gray.
"It… it just feels too real… I've never been that scared before…" said Yurika shakily.
"It's just a game, don't let it get to you. I mean, dying means you can't play anymore but it's not like you die in the real world." Said Gray.
"Yeah, but still…" Yurika said while looking down.
Gray and the others were lost in thought and Gray himself started to doze off, the tingling from his arm had stopped which was a dangerous thing since he knew he had to get it treated fast. It's not that Caleb couldn't bandage it, just that the hole in his arm was too big from the giant front incisors that tried to chomp it off completely.
Gray felt something warm and pleasant on his cheek after closing his eyes as he was beginning to doze off. He turned to look at what caused it and saw Yurika blushing slightly as she was backing down.
"That's for saving me…"
Geoff and Caleb looked at Gray with envy but remembering that he almost got his arm chomped off for that kiss on the cheek they figured it wasn't worth getting jealous over.
__________
Geoff and Caleb yelled for a medic as soon as they made it back to the base, the base staff came alive and pulled Gray into the same medical facility that they woke up in from the start of the game. Gray's incubation pod was rolled in to the chamber and hooked back up to the same connections that it was originally connected to.
"Private Gray Wilhelm, your body is treatable, but you will have to log off from your incubation pod here, you will receive a notification once you can log in again" said a medical assistant after examining Gray.
Gray nodded and was going to log off anyways as he felt completely drained. Looking at his HUD he saw the mission status was changed to completed so all he had to do was return to the mission board to get the reward. Gray sent a message to everyone else that he was going to log out and would have to take some time off from the game, which seemed oddly counter-intuitive since Gray like to play games during his time off. Everyone else on the team had similar ideas as well so Gray laid down in the incubation pod and then logged out of the game.
__________
Gray sat up in his VR Bed and felt a similar pain in his arm to when the rat bit him and he screamed a little and looked at his arm in panic. He saw a gaping hole in his forearm, the same as the one that the rat gave him, then felt himself become nauseous and fainted.
When he woke up it was late morning and he looked down at his arm and it was fine.
"Must've just been the intense memory of getting bit from earlier in the game getting brought back into my consciousness." Gray thought. "Where is Caleb when you need his brain?"
Gray ate some lunch and then didn't know what to do with himself. He thought about playing other games, but for some reason he just wanted to play Alterra Online even though he felt like he really did almost die last night. Actually if he was being honest he was still star struck from Yurika kissing his cheek, he started to compare Maven's and Yurika's kiss to himself and thought that Yurika's felt more genuine but Maven's felt more passionate.
As he started to lose himself to his own mind, he was startled when his armlet notified him of a message. Looking at it, it was from Caleb.
"Was hoping it was Yurika, or even Felicia, heck Stacia would be preferred over Caleb" Gray thought to himself as he was feeling very lucky with women lately.
Gray opened the message that was direct to the point: "Need to talk, offline, ASAP."
Gray tried to call Caleb directly but he never answered so instead he sent him a message back. "When and where?"
A few seconds later a reply came through. "Tonight, 8pm, Northway Shopping Center."
"Weird, but then again, nothing about Caleb is normal" Gray thought to himself.
__________
"Celeste, what is your status of tracing the credit's virtual mint?"
"My lord, we were unable to trace the origins of the 'AP' minted credits. With the amount of domed cities lost, it is possible the mint is no longer in existence and the credits minted in it were transferred with their registrations to another mint."
"Arrggghhh… this isn't supposed to be how it goes… I'm supposed to find some earth shattering clue that will unveil the mystery then force me to live the life of a fugitive while I find other allies to help fight the system that wants to keep us all under its control!" complained Caleb.
Finally Caleb calmed down. "I need a change of pace…"
Caleb logged into a full dive VR hangout that he used when he wanted to change things up a bit and just blend in. He really enjoyed playing virtual pool so he would play by himself frequently as usually only couples hung out at this sort of place together and just about every female character that entered would be with a guy since these social type of games that didn't restrict age or gender and were free to play had dozens of 'anxious' young men trying to flirt with females. Caleb once considered bringing Celeste with him, but he was pretty sure he would get no peace then with her around.
Caleb racked up all of the balls and slid them back and forth and lined them up in position on the green pool table, he removed the triangle rack from the balls and walked over to the opposite end. As he was chalking up the pool cue, a beautiful woman in a short black dress and nylons wearing black heels was walking towards him. Caleb felt something off about this not because she was walking towards him, but because nobody else seemed to notice her. She had shoulder-length chestnut hair, brown eyes, and soft white skin that contrasted heavily with her black dress.
Caleb then looked at her and said "Which company's AI are you?"
"I told him you wouldn't be distracted, and he made me wear something so embarrassing!" The woman snapped her fingers and her character dissolved and then reappeared in a different outfit, a professional dark business suit with black short heels and black nylons. Her brown eyes were now behind a pair of oval shaped glasses and she gave off a much less amicable attitude compared to before.
"I represent Alterra Corporation, I am Nadia."
Caleb was very surprised, Nadia was one of the few unknown avatars. "What can I do for Alterra Corporation?"
"The secrets you are trying to uncover will be revealed in time, stop what you're doing and we won't have to take action." Said Nadia icily
"Well, I value my own life so I will play it safe and behave, still, will killing me solve anything?"
"Kill you? Oh no, you're too valuable of a pilot just like the others, we wouldn't want to kill you, just behave for now, we need as many people playing Alterra Online as possible."
Caleb nodded and added "Fine, I'll play along then…" and then picked up the cue ball and lined up his shot as Nadia smiled and left the same way she came in without anyone noticing her again.
Caleb thought to himself "I should warn at least Gray to be wary of Alterra Corporation" as he continued to play pool. He wordlessly sent a text message to Gray "Need to talk, offline, ASAP."
__________
Gray made it to the designated spot at 7:57pm and thought to himself "Holy crap, is this going to be some spy stuff where Caleb reveals to me he's a secret government agent and was framed and needs my help to prove his innocence?" Gray laughed at himself then continued "Who am I kidding, but still, it is out of character for him to do this."
Sitting on a nearby bench and letting his thoughts just wander as they please, Gray looked at the chronometer in his HUD and saw that it was now almost 9:00pm.
"Where is he?" Gray thought.
Gray then sent a message to Caleb in text form asking if he was on his way.
Caleb replied "On my way to where and what for?"
Gray started to fume slightly "You were the one who asked to meet me at this shopping center at 8:00 pm saying you had something to talk about, what gives?"
"I really don't know what you're talking about, I recommend getting a good amount of sleep as lack of sleep can lead to dementia. See you in game tomorrow?"
"…Ok, see you in game tomorrow" Gray was still mad and then went to double-check the messages that Caleb has sent him earlier in the day.
"What the heck? They're gone?" Gray scrolled through his messages and didn't see the 2 messages from Caleb earlier, nor the 2 sent to Caleb in his outbox. "Maybe I really do just need some sleep."
__________
A cold sweat ran down Caleb's back as he suddenly felt his body 'leave' and saw he was back in Alterra Online without even logging in from his VR bed, worst yet his incubation pod was still sealed so he wasn't able to get out. He started to panic slightly when he noticed he couldn't log out of the game either nor force the pod open. Caleb blinked for a second then found himself standing in front of the pool table just as before.
A new message arrived on his armlet, "Remember, behave"
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LordSputnik
LordSputnik Struggled with this one as I'm trying to keep it believable in the sense and also not reveal too much. I plan to end the first volume at 40 and to end this 'introduction' arc at the same time.
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