Vivid Stars Online

The words flowed out of me as I explained the whole story. From the very first time, I started unconsciously trying to use my powers in the real world, all the way through to what I had discovered in the pod.

While Linnea sat there supportively the entire time, I found that I had trouble looking at her to gauge her reaction. While it had been brought to stark light with my latest find, I had still known that something was going on for a long time now.

Even though I hadn’t known the details, it was still something that had serious ramifications for everyone playing VSO. Looking back, it now felt like I should have told her as soon as I knew something was going on.

I knew that wasn’t entirely rational, we hadn’t even been that close when I first found out, however, it was still a feeling that was hard to suppress. When I finally finished, however, I was no longer able to avoid seeing how she took it.

I wasn’t sure what I expected to see on her face, but the mixed expression of sadness and guilt wasn’t it. Shouldn’t she be surprised or something? I thought before the answer came to me.

“You knew?” I asked as shock and a little betrayal flashed through me. She flinched back at that, and I immediately felt bad as her look of guilt grew. Still, I needed to know the truth, so I kept myself from apologizing and waited for her to speak.

“Yes,” she finally said after what felt like an age. “I’ve known since the beginning.” She reached a hand out toward me before sighing and letting it fall to the bed.

“I want to explain,” she started again, her face mournful. “But I need you to promise not to tell anyone first. It’s important.”

Thoughts and emotions swirled through me at hearing that. Part of me was angry that she would even ask that after hiding something so important, while another was offended at the lack of trust it suggested.

Still, more of me was terrified to hear that she’d just been using me all along or something crazy like that. I could feel my trust in her teetering on the brink, but eventually, I pulled myself back. I need to at least hear her out, I thought as I nodded back at her.

“OK,” I said with a nod. “As long as what you're saying isn’t going to hurt a lot of people or otherwise compromise my morals, I won’t tell anyone.” That should be safe enough, I thought as I saw her relax.

“That’s fine,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I mean, a lot of people are probably going to get hurt, but it’s not going to be because of us.”

I took note of her use of us, but still nodded for her to continue.

Instead of speaking immediately, Linnea pulled a complicated device from her bag beside the bed and began fiddling with it. I could sense it giving off odd pulses of information before she eventually set it down.

“OK, we’re not being recorded or watched electronically,” she said, as she relaxed a little. “So we should be safe to talk. I guess I’ll start from the beginning.” At my responding nod, she continued.

“Our father, mine and Elana’s, owns a small design company in Sweden. A few years ago, he won a contract to work on part of the VR pod design for VSO. At the time, he was a little surprised that he wasn’t edged out by one of the larger companies, but it would only be later that he found that they picked small companies deliberately.”

“While I wasn’t there,” she continued with a shrug. “From what he’s told me, he began to get suspicious pretty quickly. There were design constraints that made no sense and hidden parts of the system they wouldn’t give him access to. Not to mention the seeming lack of any code to actually run the pod.”

“At first he thought it was a tax scam or something, that they weren’t actually making a game. He almost spoke up or went to see the authorities,” Linnea paused with a shudder at that. “But then a few other people started becoming more vocal about it.”

“Those people soon vanished,” she said quietly, fear in her voice. “And he was almost one of them. There were always explanations or accidents that pointed away from VSO, but it was always someone who had been making noise.”

“He almost quit when he figured that out, however, he thought even that might be dangerous. So instead he began very carefully sounding out other people involved in the project. Designers, manufacturers, and even investors. And eventually, he found more people who were suspicious enough to do something.”

“Then to make a long story short,” she said with a tired shrug. “They began investigating behind the scenes. While we still don’t know much, we’ve figured out much the same thing you have. There is no VSO game, there is just reality somewhere else.”

Fuck, I thought with a wince as I heard her confirm something that I’d been afraid of. It raised hundreds of questions and concerns, but only one that I felt up to asking right now.

“Your sure?” I asked with a quaver in my voice. “There’s no chance we could be wrong?”

“Very sure,” she responded with a sad shake of her head. “While it’s all set up to look real from the outside, it falls apart when you do enough digging.”

With a wave, she gestured at the surrounding room. “They just don’t have the infrastructure for all of this. While they have server farms, they're all either empty or filled with outdated equipment. They don’t even have enough to run one of the less realistic games on the market.”

“And the pods,” she continued with a frown. “They don’t send or receive anything meaningful. It’s just encoded garbage designed to look like it’s communicating with their servers. There is no actual game code anywhere that we could find.”

“Oh,” I said, my heart sinking. “So the only explanation is that?” I paused, the question half-answered, as I tried to articulate what I was beginning to fear.

“That this is all real, and we’re somehow being projected here in a real body,” she answered with a nod. “Almost like a physical form of astral projection or something. We aren’t clear on the details, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“So all of this is real somewhere,” I said, also gesturing to the surrounding room. “And everyone here is real as well? All the people, and even the Beasts?” I shuddered at that thought, cold shooting through me.

She nodded in response, and I rushed on as guilt filled me. “How do you deal with that? We’ve killed people, Linnea, I’ve killed people. The attack in the woods, the fight in mountains against Adam. God, poor Adam,” I finished with a shudder.

“It's hard,” she sighed next to me, understanding and hurt in her voice. “But it wasn’t the first time for me when we fought, Adam. I’d faced bandits on a couple of my other missions.”

“You haven’t seen a lot of it since you’ve been so far out,” she continued, with a sad note in her voice. “But things are rough in a lot of places here. People were getting desperate and turning against their neighbors. In a few places, the group I was with had to kill to keep innocents safe.”

“It was hard, really, hard.” She continued, “but in the end, they were the aggressors. We gave them a chance to back down, and they attacked anyone. It was the same with Adam and the same when the group with the mech attacked us. We can’t be blamed for defending ourselves or others.”

“Right,” I said a little brokenly. While that didn’t exactly help how I was feeling, it was something to clutch onto. I would have a lot of processing to do later, but for now, I pushed on.

“So, how do I fit in with all of this? Was meeting me really a coincidence? And what about us?” I asked, fitting in all the questions that I was really dreading.

“Oh Jared, no,” she said, her voice shaking. “What we have is real, it wasn’t like I was sent here to draw you in or anything. And while I might have stayed around more at the start because you were a Psion, that had nothing to do with me falling for you.”

While her words at the end warmed me a little, I had to be sure, so I pressed onward. “What would me being a Psion have to do with it?”

“It's why we’re here,” she responded with a sigh, her face falling a little. “I mean, don’t you think it’s a little odd that the two of us, an engineer and a soldier, would pick such an out-of-the-way and underdeveloped world to start on?”

“I didn’t really think about it,” I said as my heart sank again. “I guess I was just busy with my own stuff at the time.”

“We're here investigating Psionics,” she said with a sad shrug. “In particular, Psi tech. The people father is working with managed to interview some beta testers and find out about it. Since all the tech here appears to actually be real, Psi-Tech is one of the leading theories as to how it all works.”

“Why didn’t one of you play a Psion then?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be easier and safer?”

Another look of guilt flashed across her face as she sighed. “That was the original plan. Elana is actually an engineer in real life, so it made sense for her to be one here as well. That left me with the Psion role.”

“But I changed my mind at the last minute and ruined it,” she continued as she shook a little. “Solider just fit so much better with solving my problems.”

At my inquisitive look, she continued. “I’m sick, Jared, really sick. Not the kind of sickness you catch, but the kind you're born with. I’ve always loved VR games because they let me experience a bit of being well, and when I heard that VSO would change you in the real world, I threw everything away for that chance.”

“From what we’ve been able to discover,” she continued as her voice cracked. “Whatever changes you experience here will affect your real body to some extent, though how much differs per person. As a soldier, the Brawn, Agility, and Toughness, which were my primary attributes would flow to my real body.”

“And that would help,” I said with an understanding nod. “I’ve kind of noticed the same thing as well. When I got cut in my first fight with that mugger, I probably should have bled out, yet I was fine in a week or two without any real treatment. Looking back, that had to be my Toughness flowing over.”

“Yeah,” she responded with a hiccup, nearly on the verge of tears. “But it screwed up the whole plan, leaving us stuck here trying to look into it without any leads. Dad could only support us so much without it being suspicious, so we put the mission aside to look for work.”

“So it’s not like I went looking for you, or anything,” she hurried to get out. “I mean, I didn’t even know you were a Psion when we started. But I did keep coming back because you were.”

“Ah,” I responded, trying to figure out how I felt. It wasn’t as bad as I first feared, and while it had clearly influenced her to stay around, it didn’t sound like she’d seduced me because of it or anything.

I did need to hear her confirm that, however, so I pushed a little. “What about when we started dating?”

“I, I don’t think so?” She said, her voice torn. “But it’s not like I can be sure, maybe it did. But it doesn’t have anything to do with how I feel now, you have to believe that,” she almost begged as she stared at me.

I paused for a moment to see how I felt, before finally nodding in return. “I do believe you,” I said, pulling her in for a hug. I really did as well, Linnea had become someone I trusted and I could see how much this was tearing her up.

While I still had a lot of questions about this shadowy group she, and her father, seemed to be part of, I’d at least had my most personal questions answered. I could let her calm down a bit before pushing any further.