Vivid Stars Online

The roof slid open above me as I sat up in the VR pod. Instinctively, I reached out with my senses in response to my sudden change in surroundings, only to recoil as I realized just how reduced they were.

For a moment I panicked, then I remember I had logged out of the game and was back in the real world. Damn, I thought with a shudder as I began pulling myself to my feet. That was a head trip and a half, way different from just being in the game for a day.

It made me glad that I had come back when I did, allowing me to get back in touch with real life for a little while, at least. Who knows how bad it could get if I spent months in there? I hope Linnea’s going to be alright if she ever comes out.

The fact that I was dating someone who I wasn’t even sure wanted to return to the real world, and who lived in another country if even if she did, was something that I had been trying to ignore. Given how real VSO was, it wasn’t necessarily a problem after all.

Still, it would be nice to meet her in person at least once, and perhaps with my growing income, I could make that happen someday. I just hoped that she wouldn’t experience any dangerous symptoms in that event.

Shaking my head, I put that aside for now and left the tiny room the pod was in. Even at a reduced level, it was still amazing how much of the facility I could sense. I haven’t been out since I got Technokinesis, I realized as I took it all in.

That triggered a thought, and I turned back to focus on the pod I had just left. While I had scanned it many times before, that was back when I only had Item Attunement. I had found nothing odd at the time, but perhaps I would if I tried again now.

At first, I only sensed what I had before, though in greater detail, however as I dove deeper, something caught my attention. Near where my head would lie if I sat down was a point where my senses slid off almost imperceptibly.

If I hadn’t sensed something similar on a much larger scale with the stealth shielding on my ship, I probably would have missed it. Well, well, I thought with a grin. That doesn’t seem normal at all.

I couldn’t see why, or even how a normal Earth company had come up with something that shielded Psionic abilities. Even if they had someone who could display them, surely it would take a long time to develop something like that.

Gritting my teeth, I narrowed all of my focus down on the spot. Piercing shielding like his had been difficult even with my full abilities, in my limited state it was almost impossible.

Only almost, though, and with that in mind, I kept pushing. My reserves drained by the second and I could feel the strain causing a migraine to appear, however at last I was rewarded with a single flash of insight.

A sphere connected to dozens of wires sat within the shielding, energy pulsing out along them. The surface of the sphere was covered in runes that burned themselves into my mind, Arkathian runes.

Holy shit, I thought as I stared down at it in exhaustion. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but that had been low on the list. It raised so many questions that I couldn’t answer, questions that I didn’t even want to think about with my raging headache.

Fuck it, I’ll think about that in the morning, I mused as I wandered off down the hall.

The next morning, I was back to normal and more than ready to ponder the consequences of what I had found. While it still left a lot of questions, some things now felt clear to me.

Firstly, it had to be the VR pod that was causing my changes. I couldn’t be sure if it was something that was in all pods or just in a few of them but it was at least present in mine. I would have to scan more pods to get an idea of coverage and given how hard mine had been, I wasn’t about to just jump into that.

The other big question it raised was just what the link was. On more than one occasion, I had wondered at just how real the NPCs in VSO were, and it seemed I might have been more right than I thought.

Could it all be real, I wondered with a shudder. But for what purpose? Why market it as a game then? And what’s with all the game elements if it is real?

These were questions that I just didn’t have enough information to answer. I almost went on the VSO forums to see if anyone else had noticed but I stopped as a thought hit me. I’d seen just how closely they were being monitored when I had been unable to post how to get the Psion class.

If I post a question or even search for the wrong thing on here, they’ll know, I realized with a start. I had considered before if the company behind VSO knew about what was happening, and given that I’d found alien technology inside their product, I could only assume that they did.

Given that it might not be safe to let on that I knew. They might try to keep me quiet, or even abduct me to run experiments on. Just a few hours ago, those thoughts would have felt ridiculous, but now they felt all too possible.

Instead, I turned my attention to the wider Internet, trying to get a feel for what was going on without directly searching for anything incriminating. I found very little, which was perhaps incriminating on its own.

While there was some chatter on the more underground forums about odd sightings or people claiming to have odd abilities, none of the more legitimate news sources had anything to say. All that was being reported was an uptick in unexplained crimes.

That could be Psionics or perhaps some other ability from the game if it even is a game, I thought as I began reading through a few of them. Even someone twice as strong as the human maximum would leave normal police baffled.

There had been no official statement on it, just that the police were being diverted more resources to work on it. A lot more resources.

I didn’t want to feel like some kind of conspiracy theorist, however, it almost felt like things were being covered up rather than being investigated. What the hell is going on, I thought with a groan. Things were just starting to go well.

It was becoming clear that I couldn’t keep willfully ignoring what was going on, however, I also wasn’t sure how much I could do. I had responsibilities in VSO now, ones that were perhaps even more important than I’d thought.

If there was a chance that it was all real, then I was actually in charge of a lot of actual people who were depending on me. That was a terrifying thought, as I in no way felt qualified for that.

It added whole extra dimensions to getting my lands there built up, though I had no idea which ones were valid. Could it be possible to actually go there? Or did it mean something else entirely?

It was a rabbit hole that I could go down forever, but I managed to pull myself back for now. I couldn’t afford to spend the days or weeks out of the game that would be required for an in-depth investigation on Earth.

Instead, I signed up for a few of the more promising forums discreetly and added a bit of information of my own. Nothing could out me, or at least so I hoped, but enough that I should be able to make some inroads into the community.

Hopefully, I could make a few contacts to talk to and perhaps pool knowledge with. I would just have to be careful that I didn’t count on anyone who was actually crazy, or who was some kind of undercover agent.

God, I could get so paranoid about this, I thought with a shake of my head. I had no idea how careful I needed to be, and while I didn’t want to get crazy about it, I wanted to err on the side of caution.

And that, I decided, meant mostly sticking to my normal pattern of behavior. It wouldn’t do to suddenly start acting strangely when I had no idea what kind of resources the people behind this had.

They might even have people keeping watch at VR facilities like the one I had moved into. Or maybe they were analyzing login patterns to look for drastic changes? Hell, for all I knew, they could read your mind whenever you logged in.

Trying to stay calm, I turned the rest of my morning time to more mundane research. Humans had been moving into wild areas of our planet for a long time and I was sure that there were a lot of lessons to be learned there.

While I could hardly become an expert immediately, it was something I could spend a little time looking into each day. Hopefully, I could find some solid ideas for moving forward with my plans.

Working on something concrete helped to calm me and I soon found that it was time to head back into VSO. I saved information I had been reading for later and did a quick check of the conspiracy forums.

There were already a few comments on the information I’d left, though nothing ground-shaking yet. Hopefully, that would develop over the coming days and weeks, particularly if I kept dropping tidbits now and then.

I planned to go back to spending most of the day in VSO while coming out for eight hours in the real world. That would allow me to get back in touch with reality, or at least this part of it, as well as let me continue to research.

God, I hope it doesn’t all fall apart, I thought with a shudder as I made my way down to the VR floor. For the first time in a while the underground area felt confining, and I couldn’t help but worry a little about going back into the pod.

If anything, getting a hint at what was going on made me more nervous about the pod itself and what it might do to me. Still, I had little choice unless I was going to throw away everything I’d gained.

Just man up and do it, I thought as I stared down at the pod. Nothing's changed except how much you know, the process will be the same as what your used to.

That thought calmed me and I managed to slide into the pod and lie down. Taking a deep breath, I started the login sequence and waited for everything to go dark. I really hope they can’t read my mind, I thought as consciousness faded away.

I woke up gasping in bed, only to relax as I saw the same hotel room that I’d logged out in. Linnea stirred beside me, stretching in a most distracting way.

“Sorry for waking you,” I said with a smile while trying to mask my nervousness. I was still torn about whether to talk to Linnea about the whole situation. As much as I trusted her, I’d had hints that her and Elana’s situation was odd.

And even if there was nothing to that, I wasn’t sure I wanted to potentially put her in danger if there was no reason to. Since she was in full-dive VR permanently, it wasn’t like she could help much in the real world.

I must have been less convincing than I thought, however, as she turned to me with a concerned look. “What’s wrong, Jared?” She asked, glancing over at me. “Did something happen while you were logged out?”

“Uh,” I responded inarticulately while my mind churned. I could make something up or brush her off, but somehow that felt a lot worse than just keeping quiet. It would feel a lot more like lying now that she’d asked.

“Yeah,” I said at last, deciding to just trust her. “I found something out.”