Somnia Online - K.T. Hanna (best black authors .txt) 📗

accessible through the game. They’d been able to reach her, talk to her—hell, her entire guild had been able to play with her.

But James, well, he wasn’t so lucky, and David had a really bad feeling that the story wouldn’t end as well for him as it did for his daughter.

“I guess then,” Davenport sighed over the connection. David didn’t think in all the years they’d known the man that he’d ever heard him only guess at something. He’d keep that portion of this to himself. “I guess…make the call. If you can preserve him, do so. We can’t afford this game to take another life, even if it isn’t the game that’s at fault. And make sure Staven stays there. I’ll feel better with security in place for the coming and going of the medical staff too. Tell him I’ll make sure he gets swapped out once the roster is adjusted.”

The connection disappeared, and David couldn’t help but wonder why this project was having all of these problems. His wife’s first solo design and this happened to it. Maybe he should have dragged her out of game design way back when, but it brought her so much joy.

He approached the doctor, who was frowning at the clipboard in his hand, and gave the directions. All of this was hush-hush. All of it was kept inside this room and only shared with Davenport, Shayla, and Laria apart from himself. If any of this got out, Storm Corp would take a massive blow, and the virtual reality protestors would get fodder for their movement. The game would be shut down, and he had no idea what would happen to those who had a more tangible connection to it. Like James. Like Michael.

But above all, like his daughter. Whether he wanted to or not, their family was all in. And he’d do whatever he had to protect his family.

 

Storm Entertainment Headquarters

Artificial Intelligence Server Room

Day Thirty-One

Rav twitched. He didn’t think he should be able to twitch. Especially not in this virtual space. It wasn’t a part of him, not like the outside world. In here, he was just an AI, not the person he’d developed into. Although, perhaps his brain processing center was the same. Anyway, he didn’t have much time to spend in their safe space. Not after Somnia sealed the fissure, and not with as little time to go before the raid finished the dungeon.

Then Michael’s prison would be freed, and if they didn’t have all of their ducks in a row, they were all fucked. He paused, taking stock of his surroundings. He said he’d handle it and had let his siblings go off to finish scouting out the Cognitia and Verendus and Hightower. Then they’d rendezvous back at the shore closest to Glacier Lake, because Fable should be finished in there by then.

He also needed to figure out a way to solve Somnia’s conundrum. She was worried about people—especially people in the outside world who had the improved headsets she’d requested—getting infected. Not only had none of them anticipated the glitch that resulted from Murmur’s headset, but they hadn’t expected a sentient world to emerge that had a damned conscience. While Telvar could feel guilt, it didn’t seem to affect him the same way it did the world.

Which probably came down to the fact that her entire existence had been triggered by Murmur’s merge with the world.

He rested his ethereal head in his hypothetical hands. If he’d had a real desk, he might have smacked his forehead against it. Still, though, he had to wait for Laria to get there. She’d been in the middle of something when he’d contacted them, and especially right now he was aware that leaving a task partially unfinished was a very unwise choice.

“Sorry!”

He heard the words at the same time as he realized entry into the room had been triggered. The sigh of relief he felt the need to expel didn’t have anywhere to go in this form. But he tried his best. “It’s okay. I have some time.”

“What did you need to tell us?” Shayla sounded breathless as well. Had they run here?

When it came to telling them what he needed to, Rav actually felt slightly nervous. “We have confirmation that the final boss no longer exists as he was programmed. He’s been taken over by Michael’s shards and has effectively become a digitized version of Michael’s worst traits.”

He paused, allowing that to sink in for a bit. The image of Laria he could see registered as shocked, then worried, and then determined.

So he continued. “Riasli delivered James to him, and Somnia located and sealed the fissure so Riasli doesn’t bring anyone else to him. We surmise that he is using the something from the game or the headset power to draw on, so Michael’s strength is increased. He doesn’t need to be stronger. Even with the anti-virus, the ripples have spread to affect people without the special headsets.”

“No,” Laria interrupted. “That’s not quite right. We have James here, and he—or Michael, because it’s an older headset—definitely tampered with it.”

“What?” While he wished he’d have known it earlier, Rav couldn’t help but be relieved at the news. Maybe that meant no normal people were in danger yet, only the ones they knew about.

“He’s…in the same state Wren was now, for the most part, anyway.” Laria sounded sad, and she hugged herself as if she was trying to get warm. “We are monitoring him just to be safe.”

That spun a whole new light on the entire situation. Rav ran through several computations and possibility options. With the factor that James’s headset was indeed tampered with, it made the inevitable outcome a lot less dire. Still bad, but perhaps salvageable. “I think we might be able to manage it, then. Maybe.”

He hadn’t liked their odds, but now he could see a glimmer of hope. But first he had to see if he could track Riasli—otherwise, everything might fall apart.

Mellow reached